| Basic Concept: Allegory
Allegory is both a figure of speech and one of the oldest types of story forms in Western literature. As symbolic literature, an allegory has both literal meaning and implied meaning. Each of the characters, the action or narrative line, the images and setting--all are representative of concepts beyond their usual or expected meanings. In Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," all three names suggest something more than a seventeenth-century youth, usually referred to socially as "goodman," a term denoting a male not quite old enough to be considered a mature adult. The character, "Goodman Brown," is meant to suggest a common young man, that is, someone very much like every other young man. The name of his wife, Faith, is meant to suggest Brown's religious "faith" as well. The journey that Brown makes into the forest is meant to represent the "path" or "journey of life" everyone must take, a route filled with the unknown and frightful encounters, sometimes so severe as to challenge people's sense of personal identity and most highly cherished values. . Among notable examples of allegories, see Plato's Allegory of the Caves, Dante's "Divine Comedy," Milton's "Paradise Lost," Spencer's "The Faerie Queen," and the medieval work, "Everyman." . Online Connections See the UVic Writer's Guide for a short discussion of allegory. See "allegory" for links to related figures of speech. . Our Course Connections Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" are the two examples of allegory that we will read in this course. .  |