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Definition of Allegory
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The Tortoise and The Hare" is... read full definition
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The... read full definition
An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and... read full definition
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Countries:
In the following excerpt, Little Dog reflects on the migratory patterns of monarch butterflies, utilizing both metaphor and allegory to craft an image of generational trauma:
The monarchs that fly south will not make it back north. Each departure, then, is final. Only their children return; only the future revisits the past. What is a country but a borderless sentence, a life? [....] What is a country but a life sentence?
Little Dog compares a country to a prison, asking, "what is a country but a life sentence?" In this passage, the monarchs are an allegory for Little Dog's older family members, Rose, Mai, and Lan. They have left their home country but still carry their past (and PTSD) with them, imprisoned by a "borderless sentence."
Little Dog further observes that in monarch butterfly populations, the length of the adult life cycle is such that the butterflies who fly south never return north. Instead, the children of the original migrators are burdened with the return journey and all it entails. Following the logic of this allegory, Rose, Mai, and Lan avoid "returning" to the past—both physically and via remembrance—because of the pain that dwells there. It is Little Dog, the next generation, who must return to the site of his elder family members' trauma.
Related Themes:
Part 3
Explanation and Analysis—Duchamp:
In the following instance of allegory and allusion from Part 3, Little Dog recalls the French artist Marcel Duchamp's controversial inverted urinal sculpture, entitled "Fountain":
I’m thinking now of Duchamp, his infamous “sculpture.” How by turning a urinal, an object of stable and permanent utility, upside down, he radicalized its reception. By further naming it Fountain, he divested the object of its intended identity, rendering it with an unrecognizable new form. I hate how he proved that the entire existence of a thing could be changed simply by flipping it over [...].
Mostly, I hate him because he was right. Because that’s what was happening to Lan. The cancer had refigured not only her features, but the trajectory of her being.
This sculpture—an inverted urinal—allegorizes Lan's sickness. She has been turned upside down, rendered nearly unrecognizable to Little Dog by the cancerous cells destroying her body. The utility of the urinal used in "Fountain" has been transfigured, morphed into something alien and unlike itself. Similarly, Lan's body has lost its utility and purpose, overwhelmed by cancer cells and no longer capable of functioning as it should.
This allegory may appear odd or abstract on a first read. In reality, Little Dog's allusion to Duchamp is deeply personal and reflects the kinship he feels with fellow writers and artists. In moments of desperation, tragedy, or high emotion, Little Dog filters and synthesizes his feelings using the work of other creatives.
Related Themes:
