Load-Bearing Elements – Allegory
You're not planning to do anything cutesy like spend the whole time discussing something other than Allegory only to reveal that you were actually talking about Allegory the whole time are you?
Probably not.
Okay, because I don't like Allegories.
That's fine, I'm not here to tell you what to like. I'm here to blog about books. And before you say that your dislike of Allegory means that it isn't enough to support an entire work of fiction, let's just agree that whether or not you like it authors have been using it for millennia and we can't just ignore it.
Well, we could just ignore it, but I suspect you've got a "because-it's-there" mentality when it comes to discussing literary devices.
That's the spirit, Hypothetical Reader. So, what do you know about Allegory?
The word itself derives from Ancient Greek and literally means something like "to talk about something else." But I would say most people would think of Allegory specifically as a story in which the fictional elements have a one-to-one correlation with philosophical, historical, political, or ideological figures or concepts.
That's a good enough working definition. I'm on board.
You're sure you don't have any pedantic response?
Still smarting after our discussion of Ideas?
Look, are we going to transition into a discussion of a 19th century-assigned-reading example or aren't we?
How would you feel about an example from the 20th century?
OMG! You mean?
That's right, Ani-
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis! I loved those when I was a kid. But then I found out that the whole thing was just an Allegory about Jesus.
Animal Farm by George Orwell, I wanted to start with Animal Farm.
I mean, isn't that a little bit obvious?
Sure. But I wouldn't say that the Narnia books are any less subtle than Animal Farm is.
Fair point.
So, let's look at Animal Farm. Obviously, we know the basics. The animals on Manor Farm, feeling that they are abused and exploited, take control of the farm under the leadership of the pigs, who establish a more egalitarian order at the renamed Animal Farm. After the ejected farmer unsuccessfully tries to take the farm back, one of the pigs, Snowball, announces a modernization plan, but is driven off by another pig, Napoleon, who begins to enforce an increasingly dictatorial regime with the help of the dogs. As time passes, the pigs begin to acquire more and more privilege for themselves and Napoleon blames any problems on sabotage by Snowball or neighboring farmers. Eventually, the pigs begin to behave more and more like humans, wearing clothes, using whips to force the other animals to work harder and harder, selling an injured horse to the glue factory, even changing the name back to Manor Farm. In the novel's final scene the other animals look in on a meeting between the pigs and the neighboring human farmers and cannot tell the difference between the two.
You forgot, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Well, yeah. But I mean, there's obviously more to this than just a simple story about animals taking over a farm. Anyone who has gone through the American public school system should at least be able to tell you that Animal Farm is an allegory for the history of Russia in the first half of the 20th century. The pigs represent prominent Soviet leaders (Napoleon and Snowball represent Stalin and Trotsky, specifically), Farmer Jones's attempts to retake the farm represent the Russian Civil War, Snowball's exile and Napoleon's purges mirror the exile of Trotsky and the Communist Party's consolidation of power and purging of other political parties (as well as extensive internal purging), and finally, when the pigs are indistinguishable from the human farmers we see that the Bolshevik leaders have become as repressive than the autocratic tsar that they replaced and the external powers they've been fear-mongering about.
But why bother telling the story in code like that?
Well, Orwell was a democratic socialist but he opposed the oppressive Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. However, since he wrote and published this book while World War Two was still being fought, it wasn't necessarily all that popular to point out that the United States and Great Britain were fighting a brutal, murderous dictator with the help of another brutal, murderous dictator. In fact, it was unpopular enough that multiple publishers rejected the manuscript on the grounds that they were worried about possible negative effects on the alliance.
So, it was sort of Orwell's way of saying, "Hey, so maybe it's not such a good idea to be palling around with Stalin."
Something along those lines, it's not like everyone in the alliance thought that the Soviet Union was just hunky dory. However, that didn't mean they wanted to start any kind of conflict with the Soviets before the Axis were defeated.
All right, so we're gonna talk about Narnia now?
Well, I wouldn't say that the stories in the Narnia books are completely allegorical, but several of the characters and elements do have an allegorical bent.
I swear to God, you're doing that on purpose.
Fine, fine. So yes, Aslan is an allegory for Jesus. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe He dies to save Edmund from the White Witch, and comes back to life. In The Silver Chair, Puddleglum's insistence that he knows that Aslan exists, even in the seeming absence of evidence, is similar to arguments for the existence of God, and, of course, in The Last Battle, Aslan more or less says, "You may also know me as Jesus." *citation needed
All right, so you admit it, it was all a sinister plot to trick kids into being Christians.
You're definitely putting words in my mouth. I'd say it's more that to an adult reader (who has a passing familiarity with the gospels) the biblical parallels are inescapable. But they would fly over the head of a younger reader (or read-to-er) because they're more willing to accept the world of the story as it appears. So, when they grow up and realize that Aslan is unmistakably Jesus-y, they feel lied to and cheated. As if their earlier enjoyment was somehow tainted by their newfound knowledge.
You're doing the thing you said you wouldn't do at the beginning of this blog!
What, how?
By turning our discussion of Allegory into an Allegory for the Fall of Man?
Can real life be an Allegory?
‾\_(ツ)_/‾
Well, if nothing else we've discovered that italics push the shrug emoji even further into the uncanny valley.
Speaking of Italicization, did we just blog about Allegory in Literature and not say anything about the Divine Comedy?
Probably not.
Okay, because I don't like Allegories.
That's fine, I'm not here to tell you what to like. I'm here to blog about books. And before you say that your dislike of Allegory means that it isn't enough to support an entire work of fiction, let's just agree that whether or not you like it authors have been using it for millennia and we can't just ignore it.
Well, we could just ignore it, but I suspect you've got a "because-it's-there" mentality when it comes to discussing literary devices.
That's the spirit, Hypothetical Reader. So, what do you know about Allegory?
The word itself derives from Ancient Greek and literally means something like "to talk about something else." But I would say most people would think of Allegory specifically as a story in which the fictional elements have a one-to-one correlation with philosophical, historical, political, or ideological figures or concepts.
That's a good enough working definition. I'm on board.
You're sure you don't have any pedantic response?
Still smarting after our discussion of Ideas?
Look, are we going to transition into a discussion of a 19th century-assigned-reading example or aren't we?
How would you feel about an example from the 20th century?
OMG! You mean?
That's right, Ani-
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis! I loved those when I was a kid. But then I found out that the whole thing was just an Allegory about Jesus.
Animal Farm by George Orwell, I wanted to start with Animal Farm.
 |
| Allegory — it's not just for Medieval and Renaissance poetry! |
I mean, isn't that a little bit obvious?
Sure. But I wouldn't say that the Narnia books are any less subtle than Animal Farm is.
Fair point.
So, let's look at Animal Farm. Obviously, we know the basics. The animals on Manor Farm, feeling that they are abused and exploited, take control of the farm under the leadership of the pigs, who establish a more egalitarian order at the renamed Animal Farm. After the ejected farmer unsuccessfully tries to take the farm back, one of the pigs, Snowball, announces a modernization plan, but is driven off by another pig, Napoleon, who begins to enforce an increasingly dictatorial regime with the help of the dogs. As time passes, the pigs begin to acquire more and more privilege for themselves and Napoleon blames any problems on sabotage by Snowball or neighboring farmers. Eventually, the pigs begin to behave more and more like humans, wearing clothes, using whips to force the other animals to work harder and harder, selling an injured horse to the glue factory, even changing the name back to Manor Farm. In the novel's final scene the other animals look in on a meeting between the pigs and the neighboring human farmers and cannot tell the difference between the two.
You forgot, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Well, yeah. But I mean, there's obviously more to this than just a simple story about animals taking over a farm. Anyone who has gone through the American public school system should at least be able to tell you that Animal Farm is an allegory for the history of Russia in the first half of the 20th century. The pigs represent prominent Soviet leaders (Napoleon and Snowball represent Stalin and Trotsky, specifically), Farmer Jones's attempts to retake the farm represent the Russian Civil War, Snowball's exile and Napoleon's purges mirror the exile of Trotsky and the Communist Party's consolidation of power and purging of other political parties (as well as extensive internal purging), and finally, when the pigs are indistinguishable from the human farmers we see that the Bolshevik leaders have become as repressive than the autocratic tsar that they replaced and the external powers they've been fear-mongering about.
But why bother telling the story in code like that?
Well, Orwell was a democratic socialist but he opposed the oppressive Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. However, since he wrote and published this book while World War Two was still being fought, it wasn't necessarily all that popular to point out that the United States and Great Britain were fighting a brutal, murderous dictator with the help of another brutal, murderous dictator. In fact, it was unpopular enough that multiple publishers rejected the manuscript on the grounds that they were worried about possible negative effects on the alliance.
So, it was sort of Orwell's way of saying, "Hey, so maybe it's not such a good idea to be palling around with Stalin."
Something along those lines, it's not like everyone in the alliance thought that the Soviet Union was just hunky dory. However, that didn't mean they wanted to start any kind of conflict with the Soviets before the Axis were defeated.
All right, so we're gonna talk about Narnia now?
Well, I wouldn't say that the stories in the Narnia books are completely allegorical, but several of the characters and elements do have an allegorical bent.
I swear to God, you're doing that on purpose.
Fine, fine. So yes, Aslan is an allegory for Jesus. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe He dies to save Edmund from the White Witch, and comes back to life. In The Silver Chair, Puddleglum's insistence that he knows that Aslan exists, even in the seeming absence of evidence, is similar to arguments for the existence of God, and, of course, in The Last Battle, Aslan more or less says, "You may also know me as Jesus." *citation needed
All right, so you admit it, it was all a sinister plot to trick kids into being Christians.
You're definitely putting words in my mouth. I'd say it's more that to an adult reader (who has a passing familiarity with the gospels) the biblical parallels are inescapable. But they would fly over the head of a younger reader (or read-to-er) because they're more willing to accept the world of the story as it appears. So, when they grow up and realize that Aslan is unmistakably Jesus-y, they feel lied to and cheated. As if their earlier enjoyment was somehow tainted by their newfound knowledge.
You're doing the thing you said you wouldn't do at the beginning of this blog!
What, how?
By turning our discussion of Allegory into an Allegory for the Fall of Man?
Can real life be an Allegory?
‾\_(ツ)_/‾
Well, if nothing else we've discovered that italics push the shrug emoji even further into the uncanny valley.
Speaking of Italicization, did we just blog about Allegory in Literature and not say anything about the Divine Comedy?
 |
| But it doesn't hurt to be a Renaissance poem. |
I believe we did. ‾\_(ツ)_/‾
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