strategy

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

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

Counter Claim:
1. Allegory, being culturally and historically grounded, can easily be misunderstood as literal or fictional only.<2. When misinterpreted, allegory can become a defensive or even repressive myth of social, cultural or religious movements.
Subjects:
Individuation → Symbols, myths
Type Classification:
D: Detailed strategies