Allegory will be introduced as a symbolic device used to represent abstract ideas or points of reference beyond the surface meaning. Animal Farm, Orwell’s strongly allegorical and political satire, uses animals and a farm setting as a representation of human society and a critique of Russian politics of the day. I will explain that, like “Oh Captain, My Captain,”
Animal Farm
is a sustained metaphor continued through the whole book length work. Recognizing allegory will include looking for a didactic theme or moral, taking note of other literary devices, in this case satire, and finally searching for the personification of such abstract ideas as greed, envy, hatred, charity, and laziness.
This rhetorical trope, an extended metaphor, is seen when objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself using Orwell’s life experiences and the politics of the day. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of historic figures-- e.g., Queen Elizabeth in
The Faerie Queen
or Stalin in
Animal Farm,
--as well as of the abstract ideas of avarice, power, and envy. These underlying meanings will become quite transparent as we read the novel. My students will come to understand that allegory is a story with two or more meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic ones.