What is Allegory?

Allegory is an extended form of metaphor. Allegory is the process of presenting an abstract idea through more concrete means. Allegory is a narrative in prose, verse or drama that has two levels of meanings. The first is the surface level meaning, which can be summed up by stating who did what to whom and when. And another second and deeper level of meaning, which may be moral, political, philosophical, or religious.

The allegory has been used widely throughout the history of art, literature and other forms of arts. Mainly there are two types of allegories: (1) the political and historical allegory; and (2) the allegory of abstract themes. In the first type, the figures, settings, or actions correspond directly and specifically to historical personages, places and events. For instance, in John Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel king David represents Charles II, Absalom represents his natural son the Duke of Monmouth and the biblical description allegorizes a political crisis in contemporary England. In the second type, the characters stand for ideas or abstract qualities. For instance Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress is a famous allegory where the adventure of the human soul is described as a journey. George Orwell’s The Animal Farm is a political allegory in which the revolution of animals in a farm is a critique of the capitalistic in the west and the totalitarian regime in Russia.

Published on 23 Jan. 2014 by Kedar Nath Sharma