Allegory

Symbolism and allegory are two powerful tools in the hands of a talented writer. Many authors choose to rely heavily on symbolism and allegory when relating truths that pertain to moral, religious, and philosophical issues. Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is a prime example of such a literary work. The story in its entirety is an allegory for the journey of one who chooses a life of faith and the choices one must make daily in order to stay on that path. As the story moves along, it…

Allegory of Geometry” by Laurent de La Hyre, which was made in oil on canvas 1649. The painting is signed by La Hyre on the lower center part of the painting along with the date created. La Hyre is a French painter who was “born in Feb. 27, 1606, in Paris, France”(1) and later “died in Dec. 28, 1656, in Paris”(1). La Hyre is famous painter who is known for painting in the French Baroque style and for painting in the Classicism style. La Hyre’s “paintings reflects the influence of Vouet,…

Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, all have a deeper meaning than shown on paper. In all three of these short stories, the common allegory/ main idea is that looks can be deceiving. Not every person is who they seem to be on the outside and this lesson is learned by reading these three stories together. “Young Goodman Brown” implies the common allegory because it shows that the townspeople weren’t who Brown thought they were. A young, good man takes a journey through life and loses…

avoiding him; thus, as punishment, the cat, too, suffers from his abuse and is eventually murdered. The passage describing the black cat’s death shows the cat’s allegorical function in which it is representative of the slave population. Through this allegory, Poe shows the degrading effects of slavery upon society’s morality.…

Nathaniel Hawthorne an author known for putting morals and exhibiting iniquity in his stories. This short story was written in the era of the Dark Romantics notable for exhibiting human thought while exploring vice. “Young Goodman Brown” is also a moral allegory shown by the usage of numerous symbols to convey Hawthorne’s lesson. It’s very possible that Hawthorne was trying to convey the moral of the closer evil is the more sin that is likely to be committed and for that reason stay close to…

In his allegory of the cave Plato describes that humans are basically blind to the world outside of their comfort zone. Plato’s cave allegory begins with a group of people living inside of a cave born and raised. One day one of the people is let out of the cave and he gets to explore the world outside. As he explores the world…

Socrates uses the different scenes of the cave to incorporate the allegory of the sun and the divided line. The cave itself, where the prisoners are tied up only to see shadows, is the visible part of the line; more specifically, the belief and opinion parts of life. This is where men learn from images and shadows. They…

that we finally understand the words that were told to us many times before. In much the same way education cannot be something that a person simply receives; it has to be experienced before we can completely understand it. As Plato states in The Allegory of the Cave, education is not “like putting sight into blind eyes”; instead it is the process of turning away from what it put in front of us and finding what is true for ourselves. The process that Plato describes involves two parts. First a…

Good vs Evil; A Psychological Allegory? Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a compelling and interesting novel that has changed the name of literature and captured every reader into a trance of wonder and awe. Lord of the Flies is interpreted many different ways depending on how the reader sees it. But who actually knows what the author was thinking when he wrote Lord of the Flies? Golding makes good vs evil extremely prominent in Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel we see many…

Junior Project Research Paper Throughout history, the allegory has played a vital role in revealing moral lessons to people of all ages and backgrounds, linked by common symbolism and human experience. An allegory is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence.” Common examples range from, Aesop’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” to C.S. Lewis’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Often, such works…