1. Global strategies
  2. Allegorizing

Allegorizing

Description

Suggesting through imaginative literature or spoken utterance deeper meanings hidden beneath the literal surface of fiction. A story is told or perhaps enacted whose details, when interpreted, are found to correspond to the details of some other system of relations.

Context

The development of allegory is tied to the development of myth. Every culture embodies its basic assumptions in stories whose mythic structures reflect the society's prevailing attitudes toward life. If the attitudes are disengaged from the structure then the allegorical meaning implicit in the structure is revealed.

Implementation

Generally, the allegorical mode flourishes under authoritarian ideological conditions. Thus, it finds sustenance wherever there is orthodoxy.

Claim

By awakening the impulse to question appearances and by bringing order to mythological interpretation, allegory imparts cultural values.

Through its indirect, ambiguous, even enigmatic symbolism it provides a freedom of expression under conditions of strong restraint.

Counter-claim

Allegory, being culturally and historically grounded, can easily be misunderstood as literal or fictional only.

When misinterpreted, allegory can become a defensive or even repressive myth of social, cultural or religious movements.

Metadata

Database
Global strategies
Type
(D) Detailed strategies
Subject
  • Individuation » Symbols, myths
  • Content quality
    Presentable
     Presentable
    Language
    English
    Last update
    May 3, 2022