Part 1 by pandouro

A serpent tempting a woman with forbidden fruit. A falcon with the disk of the sun shining in his right eye. A flaming sword that carries the power to revolutionize the world.

For thousands of years, humans have used symbols and metaphor to communicate complex ideas. This is evident in all kinds of ancient mythology, and even in sacred texts like the Bible. In modern times, the tradition continues through allegorical works of fiction, which serve as extended metaphors that relay subtle messages about real life through mystical narrative.

Some of the most famous works of classical antiquity are allegories. Plato's Cave (a story found in his Republic), for instance, describes a hapless group of people who live trapped in a cavern, and whose only sense of reality are the shadows projected from objects moving outside. This story serves as an important metaphor about the nature of education: that abstract concepts are useless—a mere shadow of reality—unless we venture outside "the cave" and experience reality directly for ourselves.

Allegory extends as far back as some of earliest forms of religious writing. In the Bible, both the Book of Genesis and the Book of Revelations are especially filled with symbolism. For instance, eating a tempting fruit serves as a metaphor for losing ones innocence, and a spreading garden represents the paradise of oneness with God. Similarly, in John's apocalyptic writings, a beast with ten horns represents the ultimate enemy of mankind in its final days.

Nowadays, allegory lives on through works like L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, and even fables like Animal Farm by George Orwell. All of these stories contain a typical narrative that the reader can enjoy and follow—but they also contain important philosophical and political messages.

Elements of Allegory

The core element of an allegory is that it functions on two levels: a surface layer that describes a series of events, and a (sometimes thinly) veiled deeper layer that reveals a hidden meaning. For instance, in Egyptian mythology, a devotee could literally believe that Ra was born on one side of the Nile every day, and then died on the other side, only to be reborn the next day—or he could see it as a metaphor for the daily cycle of the sun.

Sometimes veiling a story in allegory not only helps to colorfully explain a concept, but it is also an attempt to save the writer from persecution! Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is one such thinly-veiled story. In it, he uses a frame narrative and many different metaphors to argue for the Copernican model of the universe (that the Earth revolved around the sun and was not, in fact, at the center), in spite of opposition from the Catholic church at the time.

Another example of this sneaky literary technique is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which served as a criticism of totalitarianism under the guise of a dystopian fantasy novel. In fact, many dystopian works are allegories for social problems of their time. For instance, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley serves a similar function, and it deals with deep questions like the role of free will in a planned society.

Allegorical works don't have to be quite so political, however. Some of them employ elements of magic, sorcery, and spirituality to offer important lessons about a human being's personal search for meaning. In recent times, works like the classic anime and graphic novel series Revolutionary Girl Utena borrow from Buddhist and Gnostic mythology to relay a story about self-development and letting go of delusion, complete with magical swords and floating castles.

Settings and Characters

Not all allegories take place in magical or fairy tale settings, but the fantasy genre lends itself very easily to metaphor because anything can be turned into a symbol. For example, one can interpret the wizard's curtain in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a symbol for the veil that authority figures place over the eyes of commoners. Similarly, the mystical mushroom in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland could very well serve as a phallic symbol that hints at Alice's going through puberty, or even a reference to psychedelics and their effects on the mind.

Magical symbols—like swords that hold a special power, mysterious plants that affect those who consume them, and special talismans that lead the hero on his way—abound in allegorical stories.

The heroes themselves also take on a mystical quality. Often they appear as demigods with superhuman powers, or else they are ordinary people who are touched by some spiritual realm and allowed to see something beyond the ordinary. In Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, there is a little bit of both, where the main character starts out as an ordinary shepherd, but goes through a huge personal transformation when he surrenders to fate and decides to go on an epic quest.

Other times, allegories take place in a more mundane reality, with characters who are faced with challenges that are more transparently similar to real life. In the classic 1927 silent film Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, the allegory of the story points very directly to the challenges of early Capitalism and industrialization, which much of the Western world was dealing with at the time. In these settings, the characters are often anti-heroes of a kind, that are dealing with a society that alienates them.

Common Themes

One of the hallmarks of allegorical fiction is that it carries deeper themes with it into the plot and characters. These themes vary depending on the work and the author's agenda, but they usually have to do with universal human issues, such as politics, religion, individual freedom, and the clash between good and evil.

Often, the work is meant to refer specifically to contemporary issues by connecting them to a wider theme. For instance, in the dystopian allegory We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, one of the most important themes is suppression of individual will through forced conformity and collectivism. This has been a universal struggle probably since the very dawn of human civilization. However, We is also more specifically an allegory that refers to Soviet-era oppression of individual freedoms. In this sense, it works on several levels.

Allegories can help us understand what is going on around us by putting things in perspective. Drawing themes from real life and planting them in a fantasy universe can help us look past our usual biases and see things from a variety of interesting new angles.

Example of  Allegorical Fantasy on Wattpad:
Goda's Slave by pandouro

Synopsis:

The daughter of a wealthy baron, Kanna Rava has enjoyed privilege far beyond that of most of her impoverished countrymen. Torn abruptly from that life by a twist of fate--and politics--she finds herself sold into slavery by the central government and thrust into the hands of Goda Brahm, the cold and mysterious woman who is tasked with escorting her to her new master.

Barely over the culture shock of being dragged to the other side of the continent, into a world where women marry other women and a class of priestesses are worshiped like gods, Kanna slowly discovers both the hidden conspiracy that led to her enslavement and the terrible secret that lies behind Goda's icy demeanor.

Goda's Slave is an allegory that explores several themes. Primarily, it focuses on the clash between accepting fate and exercising free will, the suppression of personal truth by organized religion, and the effect of the environment (both cultural and natural) on gender roles and sexuality.

Excerpt:

"Keep your eyes away from the door," Goda said.

They were walking across the side of the yard, a space that was littered with empty pots and wooden flower boxes filled with shriveled weeds. A fence made of iron encircled them, but it was tipped over in places and seemed to no longer serve any purpose. Some furniture was strewn about, fallen from the wind; most of it was half-buried in the sand from what must have been months of disuse.

Kanna couldn't fathom that they were sauntering around the gardens of what was supposed to be an inn. She had heard that the Outerland region was poor, but she had never seen such squalor offered to members of the public, though it was true that she hadn't traveled much outside her family's territory. She began to turn her head to look back towards the entrance to the innkeeper's quarters, but she immediately felt Goda grasping her by the back of the neck.

Goda jerked Kanna's head forward.

"I said don't look. Face ahead," she said. "Give the woman time to rid herself of her visitor. Pretend that you haven't seen anything."

Kanna gave Goda an annoyed side-glance and tried to wriggle her head away. "What on earth are you talking about? Sometimes I wonder if you're coming up with these random demands just to see if I'll obey them."

"You don't know this culture, Rava. You can't see the big picture yet, so you'll have to trust what I say. If you cause the innkeeper to lose face, then she'll be even more uncooperative, and we don't have much of a budget to spare for different accommodations."

"You're telling me this? Isn't it you who has already insulted her?" Kanna said. She kept her eyes on Goda, but as she heard some commotion behind her and the sound of an unlatching door, she was temped to look.

"She knows me. I'm already aware of this particular vice of hers and I'm discreet about it, but if someone else were to see—especially an ignorant foreigner—she would worry that they would tell the priestesses."

"Tell them what?"

Goda didn't answer. Instead, she pressed against the small of Kanna's back to hurry her along as they rounded the corner to the back of the house. Before the front yard was out of view, though, Kanna snapped her head back with the intention to disobey.

She caught a quick flash of a figure running across the plain. The person's frame was small, young-looking, draped in multicolored robes. A short mop of brown hair on the back of their head fluttered in the wind.

This was all that Kanna saw before Goda grasped her by her shirt and sharply dragged her behind the cabin. Kanna nearly stumbled over her own feet. The bucket that she was carrying slipped from her hands, spilling water across both their feet, and Goda's folded robes—which had been tucked under Kanna's arm—fluttered into the newly-formed mud.

As soon as Kanna regained her footing, she shot a furious glance up towards Goda. Out of some unconscious impulse, she thrust her hands out and smacked her palms hard against Goda's chest, to push her back, to force her away.

But the woman barely shuffled back from the blow. It was like Kanna had struck her hands against a boulder.

"What the hell are you doing?" Goda asked, a look of bewilderment on her face.

"You can't just yank me around like a rag doll!" Kanna cried. She gnashed her teeth so tightly that she felt her jaw pop, and she stepped forward to push against Goda once again.

Goda caught both her hands before she made contact. "If you don't like it, then act like you have some sense, so I don't have to do it." She held Kanna steady with a tight grip on her wrists, even as Kanna tried to wrench her way out of the grasp. "Stop resisting," Goda said firmly—but she didn't raise her voice. She said it so calmly, with such detachment, that it only infuriated Kanna even more.

"Fight me, at least!" Kanna shouted up at her, trying to strike her fists against the trunk in front of her, but finding that it was futile. "Don't just stand there like you're a goddamn rock!"

Goda pulled Kanna up sharply by the wrists, so that they were very suddenly face to face, their breaths mingling in the cool air. Kanna found herself stretching up onto her toes to avoid hanging painfully. Goda loomed over her, eyes wide, mouth tightened.

Kanna said nothing. She was terrified.

"That is what I am: a rock," Goda muttered, so low that Kanna could barely hear it over the whistle of the breeze around them. "You do this to yourself. I'm just a heavy rock that you have been tied to. Do you scream at a rock? Do you blame a rock? Accept your fate and you'll at least be able to move forward with it."

Before the tension in Kanna's body had fully died, Goda let her go. Kanna dropped down into the sand, nearly falling to her knees, but on reflex she reached up to grasp at Goda's shirt in order to steady herself.

Goda allowed this. When the moment was over, she turned towards a steel door a few steps away and began to fiddle with the lock as if nothing had happened. The fabric slipped lightly from between Kanna's fingers as Goda moved away.

Part 2 by ariel_paiement1

Allegorical works contain two levels of meaning. The first is the overt meaning, which is the surface level or the plot, characters, and story. The second is the deeper meaning or what the first level represents. The writing technique has been around since the times of Plato and Augustine, and it has been used by notable others like C.S. Lewis or John Bunyan. Pieces like Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene or Terry Pratchett's novel Monstrous Regiment also adhere to this definition of allegorical writing. Despite the works' political rather than religious content, they still have two layers to the story and can be considered allegory.

Choosing settings and characters that match with the allegory itself is a crucial detail for any writer in the planning stages of the story.  Pratchett's work clearly illustrates this because the characters often display thinking or behavior in line with a particular thought pattern or a specific group's philosophies in the real world, and he utilizes this to make commentary on our world using a fantastical world of his own. His works have a distinct, satirical edge, but The Faerie Queene and Karen Hancock's series Legends of the Guardian King also do this well in a non-satirical fashion.

With those basics explained, let's take a look at some more complex things to consider with your allegory as you start the planning for it.

Names

In any story, names carry meaning and ideas about who the character is. However, when writing allegorical fantasy, names become that much more important because they have the ability to convey the idea of what each character or place represents too. Instead of simply labeling a trait about the character or their place in the novel, which your names would do in any other work, your names in the allegory have the capability to tell the story behind the story.

This method does require you to look through many names online or in baby books before you find the right name, but finding the right name is worth the work. While you are looking for names for one character, take note of other names you like or that contain meanings that relate to your allegory. These may be names you will want to use later, and if you note them down while looking for other names, you can save yourself time later. Be sure to also note down the meaning of the name when you write it on your list so you do not have to go searching for that again.

Culture

No story takes place in a void. Even fantasy has some type of culture and setting where the story takes place. Depending on the allegory, the cultural setting may or may not be a predominant aspect of your story. If your story is commenting on issues of society in America, then you need to consider carefully how you will structure your fantasy's society to reflect that.

For instance, Terry Prachett and Edmund Spenser were both commenting on society, so their pieces reflect the societies they wanted to discuss. Both are still fantasy worlds in one fashion or another, but both are easily recognizable as one society or another. If, on the other hand, the allegory is focused on a non-societal issue, you may not need to give the culture a particular flavor.

It is still important to consider and think through the type of culture you choose to use even if it is only there as the backdrop. Regardless of the part it plays, it will affect your story. A story set in a modernesque society with high technological advancements and magic is going to be very different from a story set in a medieval society with little tech and a lot of magic.

Theme

Every allegory, by definition, will have a theme. Your theme is whatever that secondary layer of meaning is. It is possible to have sub-themes within the main theme, but your goal as a writer is to focus the story on the main theme. When writing allegory, sometimes it is easy to become distracted by the first layer--your story--and stray from your secondary layer. You want that secondary layer to shine through the beautifully written prose that forms the first layer, which means that you have to stay on track.

Staying on track requires you to keep track. Whether you do so through a mental picture of the end goal or by writing out the end goal, you need to have that end goal in mind while writing. Every time you sit down to write, ask yourself what this chapter, scene, paragraph, or sentence is doing to accomplish the main goal and to showcase the main theme. If you do not do this, then rabbit trails creep into your story. By doing this, however, you keep your mind focused and the story, therefore, also focused.

So, what do you do if your story is straying? You have a chapter or a scene, perhaps even a paragraph or sentence, and you have read it over, but it does not seem to work with the overall theme or it does not add to that end goal you set. Now what? Simply put, cut. It may be difficult to cut something that you have written, particularly if you enjoy that chapter, scene, paragraph, or sentence. However, for the sake of your story, go back through the work and look at it with the big picture in mind, then cut whatever does not fit in that framework. The story will be much stronger for it.

Those elements are only a few of the ways to add additional meaning to your work, but they are some favorites of mine, and they work. Due to these elements, allegory offers writers the ability to weave together an intriguing story with deeper philosophical or religious concepts. When it is done well—as it is in the works of authors like Bryan Davis, Karen Hancock, and Jill Williamson—the results are enjoyable, immersive pieces of fiction. With these aspects of allegory, writers with all types of styles create fantasy tales that capture the hearts of readers across the world.

Example of Allegorical Fantasy on Wattpad:
Seanan Tapani by ariel_paiement1

Synopsis:

The town of Ashteft used to be a sleepy little town with the usual issues small towns have.  Without warning, the cozy atmosphere is destroyed when a mysterious healer from the realm of Alka shows up. After he establishes a healing hall to cater to those no other healer can help, the town is flooded with people from across the realm, and Ashteft becomes the center of attention.

Little do the inhabitants know that there are higher powers at play, and their little town is soon to become a battleground between the forces of good and evil.  And at the center of it all, the healer who can achieve the miraculous stands up for the town against the prince of darkness threatening them and the rest of the realm.

Excerpt:

He opened the salve and dipped his fingers into it. "May I?"

She nodded, a sob catching in her throat. "Why do you still help if people reject you?"

"Because it doesn't matter what they do to me. I've chosen to love them anyway." Seanan's lips curved up in a smile, but his eyes looked sad to her.

"And you've chosen to love me?" Her tears ran down her cheeks.

He continued to apply salve to her cuts and bruises, his fingers tender and gentle in ways Aamon's never were. "Yes."

She knocked back the red liquid and set the flat-bottomed vial on the small table beside the chair. "Then why do you let him treat me like this?"

"He's your master. But I'm working on the situation, Anwyl. He doesn't wish to relinquish you yet."

"You do realize he's doing this because he thinks you want me, and he's hoping to break me so you can never heal me." She stopped his slow application of the salve, her fingers locking on his wrists.

He raised his warm gaze to her face. "I know. But he underestimates what I can heal."

"Then I'm not broken beyond repair?" She released his wrists, pulling her hands back against her belly.

He reached up and wiped her tears away with tears glittering in his own eyes. "No. No one is ever broken beyond repair, Anwyl."

Hot tears poured down her cheeks, and she buried her face in her hands. "How can you say that? He's taken everything, and I feel so lost. I'm just a shell, Seanan. A puppet that does whatever he says because he yanks the strings."

He rested a hand on her knee. "It won't last forever, Anwyl. I promise."

She slipped out of the chair to sit on the stones near the hearth. "I can't..." She hiccuped on a sob. "I can't take it anymore. He never takes no for an answer. He owns me, and he'll take everything from me."

Seanan settled beside her and pulled her into his arms, letting her cry into his chest. "He won't take anything I can't return, Anwyl."

"Yes he can. He's taken my purity. My freedom. My soul."

"Those things aren't his."

"Then whose are they?" Her tears subsided, but they left her feeling drained.

He held her close to him with a sigh. "They are Kadek's, and he alone has determined the price to secure them."

She frowned. "The price? I don't understand."

"You can be washed clean of his darkness, Anwyl. As for your freedom and your soul, he may have stolen those, but Kadek knows what's necessary to regain them."

She pulled away from him to curl up in a ball on the floor. "What is the price? Can I pay it?"

"The price is too high for you to pay. It requires a life to be given. If you pay it, he will own your soul for the rest of eternity, Anwyl."

Her eyes drooped shut as weariness overtook her, and the pain-relief syrup he'd given her kicked in, adding to the drowsiness. "I am doomed then."

More on Allegory:

Allegory vs. Symbolism

https://youtu.be/48PsGOAJimM

Camara Jones via TEDx Talks
Allegories on race and racism

https://youtu.be/GNhcY6fTyBM