by Ralph Lawrence

Created on: May 23, 2008   Last Updated: March 17, 2009

Allegory as a Journey.

There are many "lists" of literature's greatest works. When one examines these compilations, volumes that are so varied in their content, a single common thread recurs time and again. Allegory and the journey, a base upon which the storyteller builds. Consider this! The Chronicles of Narnia, Moby Dick, Dante's Inferno, Don Quixote, Pilgrims Progress, The Faerie Queene, Gulliver's Travels, The Count of Monte Cristo, Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Jim and a myriad of famous works represent the central theme of a journey. And allegory shapes that journey so that the characters and setting have both a primary and secondary meaning. The reader attempts to find the hidden meaning of the quest, unrelated in reality to the less evident but deeper meaning of the text.

As an example, I once read a clergyman's comment that the Bible's Book of Revelation was not hard to comprehend, just difficult to believe. This demonstrates that the literal is superficial and the allegorical is the true meaning. How this enhances the writer's ability to use narrative to grab and maintain our attention! In the Iliad, Homer introduces us to Ulysses, a peace-loving farmer-king, not inclined to war, being drafted for battle against Troy. The reluctant hero fashions a hollow wooden horse to vanquish the enemy so he might return home. And yet, after a great victory, he wanders the earth for ten years, overcoming many obstacles, before his odyssey concludes. When he returns, he is not the same. The journey has changed him, changed his wife and changed his kingdom.

The New Testament describes, in detail, the way Jesus taught His followers using parables, each a splendid passage of allegory. Some time ago, I read a poem "Journey of the Magi" by T.S. Eliot. One would assume that the narrative, by an unnamed foreign king, would be a wondrous tale of adventure and fulfillment. Instead, there are words of complaint, bitterness and disappointment when he at last sees the Child. Realizing the depth of the event, the princely visitor admits he would do it all again, even though he is very unsure of its outcome, especially in light of the events that had transpired in Jerusalem leading up to that very personal experience. How powerful! It seems allegory dictates thought and language to paint a picture of that which is unimaginable.

In our modern world, art, as a metaphor, wields immense power. Books, music, theater and cinema command us to discover the truth, not in the quest alone, but in a fundamental certainty that the journey itself is our final reward. In fiction, characters symbolize concepts, often epitomizing emptiness, hopelessness or the futility of life's struggle. Allegory peels back the surface skin to reveal one's imagination while keeping intact its literal intent. The rhetoric of the journey permits a reader to analogize the real and the perceived. In this, the point of the allegory is to introduce a story that serves an entirely distinct purpose. Thus, past and future writers choose the mighty weapons of allusion, metaphor and symbolism to paint a multilayered narrative of the journey as an allegory.

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