ALLEGORY & SATIRE What is an Allegory? An allegory is a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral, or political one. Allegory is a form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a story have meanings that lie outside of the story itself. Thus, an allegory is a story with TWO meanings: a LITERAL meaning, and a SYMBOLIC meaning. 2 Examples of Allegory • The Tortoise and the Hare from Aesop’s Fables: From this story, we learn that the slow, strong and steady win the race. • The story of Icarus: Icarus fashions wings for himself out of wax, but when he flies too close to the sun his wings melt. This story is a message about the dangers of reaching beyond our powers. • The Hunger Games: This trilogy of Young Adult books and movies is an allegory for our obsession with reality television, and how it numbs us to reality. • Can you think of other examples? 3 What is Satire? A text that ridicules its subject through the use of techniques such as exaggeration, reversal, incongruity, and/or humour in order to make a comment or criticism about it. Identifying the humour is not enough, however. You must also unpack it and work out what the author/artist is trying to say. (What comment of criticism are they making?) Where else do we see satire? 4 6 READ “TOTEM” BY THOMAS KING ANSWER THE ACCOMPANYING QUESTIONS
