Allegory Definition & meaning

An Allegory is a fictitious narrative founded on a comparison between one set of facts with another having some likeness in their own features. Thus, in Bunyan's The Pilgrims Progress Christian's  encounters with various caves and pitfalls have their counterpart in the real dangers and difficulties an honest man has to face in this life. Hence an allegory is a detailed description of one thing under the image of another. It is always prompted by some didactic aim. The characters in an allegory  often represent abstract concept. The allegory may either be sustained throughout the work. as in Swift's Gulliver’s Travels,  or exist merely as an episode in a non- allegorical work. One example of episode allegory is the encounter of Satan with his daughter Sin,  as well as with Death - the son born of their incestuous relationship- in Paradise Lost Book II).

Of the best known allegories in English we may mention Spenser's the Faerie Queene,  Swift's The Tale of a Tub,  Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress,  and Tennyson's Idylls of the king. Among shorter allegorical pieces we may name H.G. Wells,  ''The Country of the Blind ' and Oscar Wilde’s ''The Selfish Giant'.