Communicating with Metaphors, page 11Allegory, continuedThe strength of this ambivalence led J.R.R. Tolkein, whose The Lord of the Rings could well be seen as in part an allegory for World War II, and whose ring of power could easily be mistaken for an allegorical proxy for the atom bomb, to write: ...I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purported domination of the author. In other words, if you see my book as allegorical, it’s you, not me. Methinks he protesteth overmuch. While the allegory in The Lord of the Rings is not so blatant or so schematic as to detract from a reader’s experience, elements of allegory are surely present. A figure of speech related to the allegory is the parable. A parable is a narrative involving an extended metaphor that is meant to teach a moral. Therefore, allegories with obvious morals are parables; for example, both Animal Farm and The Faerie Queen can be thought of as parables as well as allegories. However, typically parables are short-story length, not novel length. A parable intends to teach. It is upfront about its desire to convey an uplifting moral. In this, it differs from an allegory, which skates through the backdoor by pretending to just be an allegorical story. As Madonna has sung, “Papa don’t preach!” We may not like being preached to, but at least we recognize preaching for what it is, and don’t have the same revulsion as with an allegory: it seems to us that the author of the allegory knows the moral but just doesn’t want to explicitly come out with it. Continued next page
TOC ||
Page
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20
|
|
Search Engine Optimization  Syndication Viewer Our Web host: IX WebHosting |
||||||||||||