On allegory
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17. 2007 and is filed under Allegory,Posts by Chris Walley.
When Tyndale expressed their cautious interest in the first of the manuscripts of my Lamb among the Stars books they asked me a number of questions. The first took me by surprise: ‘Is this an allegory?’
Now I am no English scholar but I take it that an allegory is a sustained metaphor: a story in which key elements stand for something else in the real world. It is, however, worth noting that the term is vague: there can be sustained and rigid allegories in which everything has some deeper meaning or less thoroughgoing forms in which only some things bear a double meaning. So, for instance, I would put the Chronicles of Narnia as a partial allegory rather than a full-blown one. My answer incidentally, was ‘No; it isn’t, it’s just a tale.’ That is still true but it has left me thinking about allegories ever since.
Tolkien was so irritated by those who found in Lord of the Rings an allegory of either the events during or after the Second World War that he went as far as to explicitly deny any allegorical or topical significance in the introduction and with it, stated his dislike of allegory generally: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.” One reason for his disdain for allegory was surely allegory-hunters. “Of course,” they say, with that condescending look, “’it’s not really about X or Y. That’s just on the surface. At depth we can see it’s really about sex/ death/ power/Iraq.” And, with a flourish, they tug the allegorical rabbit out of the hat. So, I found one author who felt that there were references to the Holocaust in LOTR instancing Gimli finding the remains of his people in Moria. (Given that the disaster in Moria was a self-inflicted one for the dwarves this is actually an offensively anti-Semitic reading!)
There are also technical problems with writing allegory. The greatest one is that it is very hard to marry a good tale with an allegory. It is hard enough to write a story that catches the interest of readers even without having to follow the demands of the allegorical. You are literally the servant of two masters. So for instance, suppose you realize that that your plot could be so much more compelling if, in the next chapter, the hero walked out on the heroine. That’s tough if the iron demands of allegory require that the hero be a weak and spineless character who can do nothing of the sort. This is probably why fantasy is the most fertile soil for allegory as it loosens constraints by allowing more freely invented settings. This and other technical problems may explain how rare allegory is. Most people can name only two: Pilgrim’s Progress and Animal Farm. An allegory is a rare beast; a long one, even rarer.
So am I against allegory? When I started thinking about this I was. Yet it is interesting how much our Lord’s teaching is allegorical. What is a parable except a brief allegory? One of the great advantages of an allegory is that it presents something in a fresh way. It is rather like the first time you glimpse your house on Google Earth: you see, with a sudden realization, new relationships between familiar things.
I suspect that the today’s paucity of the allegorical is not on literary grounds at all. You see it seems to me that the strongest motive for allegory (and it needs one) is because we have a truth that we so urgently wish to communicate that the only way of doing it is by using representation or symbolism. Could it be that our loss of interest in allegory is not on grounds of stylistic purity but simply that we have become so apathetic that nothing, not even the gospel moves us deeply enough to venture it. If so, God help us!
Now I am no English scholar but I take it that an allegory is a sustained metaphor: a story in which key elements stand for something else in the real world. It is, however, worth noting that the term is vague: there can be sustained and rigid allegories in which everything has some deeper meaning or less thoroughgoing forms in which only some things bear a double meaning. So, for instance, I would put the Chronicles of Narnia as a partial allegory rather than a full-blown one. My answer incidentally, was ‘No; it isn’t, it’s just a tale.’ That is still true but it has left me thinking about allegories ever since.
Tolkien was so irritated by those who found in Lord of the Rings an allegory of either the events during or after the Second World War that he went as far as to explicitly deny any allegorical or topical significance in the introduction and with it, stated his dislike of allegory generally: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.” One reason for his disdain for allegory was surely allegory-hunters. “Of course,” they say, with that condescending look, “’it’s not really about X or Y. That’s just on the surface. At depth we can see it’s really about sex/ death/ power/Iraq.” And, with a flourish, they tug the allegorical rabbit out of the hat. So, I found one author who felt that there were references to the Holocaust in LOTR instancing Gimli finding the remains of his people in Moria. (Given that the disaster in Moria was a self-inflicted one for the dwarves this is actually an offensively anti-Semitic reading!)
There are also technical problems with writing allegory. The greatest one is that it is very hard to marry a good tale with an allegory. It is hard enough to write a story that catches the interest of readers even without having to follow the demands of the allegorical. You are literally the servant of two masters. So for instance, suppose you realize that that your plot could be so much more compelling if, in the next chapter, the hero walked out on the heroine. That’s tough if the iron demands of allegory require that the hero be a weak and spineless character who can do nothing of the sort. This is probably why fantasy is the most fertile soil for allegory as it loosens constraints by allowing more freely invented settings. This and other technical problems may explain how rare allegory is. Most people can name only two: Pilgrim’s Progress and Animal Farm. An allegory is a rare beast; a long one, even rarer.
So am I against allegory? When I started thinking about this I was. Yet it is interesting how much our Lord’s teaching is allegorical. What is a parable except a brief allegory? One of the great advantages of an allegory is that it presents something in a fresh way. It is rather like the first time you glimpse your house on Google Earth: you see, with a sudden realization, new relationships between familiar things.
I suspect that the today’s paucity of the allegorical is not on literary grounds at all. You see it seems to me that the strongest motive for allegory (and it needs one) is because we have a truth that we so urgently wish to communicate that the only way of doing it is by using representation or symbolism. Could it be that our loss of interest in allegory is not on grounds of stylistic purity but simply that we have become so apathetic that nothing, not even the gospel moves us deeply enough to venture it. If so, God help us!
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Wednesday, October 17. 2007
Donna Swanson wrote:
Chris, it looks as though you gave the best definition of what we write as I've seen. You said your editor asked you if your novel was allegorical. Assuming it was after he'd read it, you seem to have written it without thinking allegory and, perhaps, that's what we all should do. If , in crafting a tale that intrigues us enough to keep it going we find others putting it in this or that niche, we have accomplished our goal. That is to capture and captivate our audience.
If we each set out to create an allegorical work of fiction, wouldn't we lose sight of the forest while dissecting the trees? Perhaps because I never attended a college, I am more or less ignorant of the finer points of writing. Maybe that makes me less of an author, but the Dean of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt once told me never to let a college professor in my door. So, I stumble along and write what gives me pleasure. And, in the meantime, struggle with problems of faith and morals that plague the characters.
In the sixth and last book of the Windfallow series, I will attempt to get inside the mind of an angel and chronicle his mental warfare with Satan himself who tries to win him over to Hell's army. Allegorical? I don't think so. Maybe a parallel tale to the fall of Lucifer? I sure would like someone with whom I could swap ideas. It's been a lonely road I've walked as a writer and the Internet with sites such as this is a lovely oasis.
Thanks
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Thursday, October 18. 2007
Mirtika wrote:
I wrote a story that got one reviewer's comment that it was allegorical. Well, that surprised me (color me the same color as Tolkien), since I never intended it to be anything but a real sci-fi story.
Of course, I cannot account for anything my devious subconscious (or Tolkien's) may have been up to.
I do know that the problem with Christian allegory that I've read in pre-pubbed (and a couple of pubbed) forms is how very OBVIOUS it is. The mystery and interest goes bye-bye if I know exactly where a story is going. I just rejected a story for publication in an online mag for that precise sort of obvious, cliche allegory that retells the story of Christ in a fantasy setting. I think as Christians, that being the most important storyline of all, it will crop up in symbology or even in certain narrative lines and characters. It matters to us. But if I read another King or Redeemer with another Kingdom of Light or Dark Kingdom, who has to sacrifice so the land can propser, with a Bad Tempter, etc, I will puke.
Of course, that can still work as a grand archetypal story if you add new and fresh elements, add twists, give it a sense of being a new thing, even if it's not that new. It's just not moving away from the already done to death symbols/allegorical elements that makes it look, well, unimaginative and downright insulting.
Mir
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Thursday, October 18. 2007
Nick wrote:
I'm suspicious of fiction that is allegorical. For one thing, it's very hard to pull off successfully. For another, I think most readers of just about any genre, including speculative fiction, expect primarily a good story. If it's allegorical, that's a ways down the list as to why they may read the book. In other words, it has to succeed as a story, before it has to succeed as an allegory. Frankly, if an author tells me their manuscript is an allegory, that's a red flag to me.
In the sense that all good fiction has a "theme," I suppose any good fiction, then, can be said to be at least somewhat allegorical. But the best fiction authors weave their theme into the story seamlessly. The "message" if there must be one, is picked up as a side benefit to simply having read a compelling story.
Allegories are fine. "Pilgrim's Progress" is a great book. But to pull it off today is very, very hard in my opinion.
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