[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] Explain the function of symbolism and allegory in a text.

Twenty four hundred years ago, Plato, said life is like being chained up in a cave forced to watch shadows flitting across a stone wall. Alex Gendler unravels Plato's Allegory of the Cave, found in Book VII of The Republic. [4:33]

This slideshow focuses on allegory by defining characteristics and providing examples.

This site provides an excellent description of allegory. Content includes a focus on two of the main types of allegories, as well as an example.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] In this lesson, you will learn to explain the function of symbolism and allegory in a literary text such as a poem. The ability to recognize symbolism and allegory will...

Click through the slides to learn about different types of symbolism including religious, political, color, advertising, and literary. Then learn what allegory is and how it relies on symbolism. Examples from various texts and real-world...

This is an online photocopy of the original text of the children's novel The Silver Bells, An Allegory by I. Gregory Smith [1870], an allegorical novel.

A scanned copy of the 1851 publication of The Revellers, an Allegory by Edward A. Monro, a fiction book for children.

Explain the function of symbolism and allegory in a text.

A self-guided learning path exploring symbolism, imagery, and allegory.

A graphic organizer to understanding allegories in a given piece of literature. Fill in the sections on literal meaning, symbolic meaning, and the lesson presented.

Find out how Shakespeare using symbolism, imagery and allegory in his play Hamlet.

This lesson focuses on the short story "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It features links to the article "The Salem Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692 and 'Young Goodman Brown'" and the PDF text for the short story. It also defines...

This is the introduction to an American Literature unit on The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Miller wrote the play about the witch hunt in the 1690s in Salem, Massachusetts as an allegory protesting against McCarthyism, a similiar problem...

This is an introduction to a unit on the political allegory Animal Farm by George Orwell, in which he uses animals to symbolize political leaders in the Russian Revolution.

This is an online text of the political allegory Animal Farm by George Orwell from GeorgeOrwell.org.

The title of Courbet's painting "The Artist's Studio; A real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life" contains a contradiction: the words "real" and "allegory" have opposing meanings. Is it possible that Courbet is...

This is an online photocopy of the original text of the children's book The Young Folks Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1890), Bunyan's immortal allegory, with all the theological discussions left out.

This is the full text of the one-act play The Little Dream by John Galsworthy, an allegory in six scenes.

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan (1628-1688) and published in February 1678. It is regarded as one of the most...

This is "'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow': An Allegory for a Young America," an exceptional student example of literary analysis as well as an explanation to the main body of her paper. A link to the MLA website is also provided.

[Free Registration/Login Required] This resource provides ten lessons connected to George Orwell's novella, Animal Farm. An assessment is included that is connected to this allegory and propaganda.

Explains what personification is and gives examples. Includes links to related articles on symbolism, elements of rhetoric, fables, figure of speech, and allegory.

This is the full text of the four-act play Life Is A Dream by Pedro Calderon de la Barca including a list of characters. It is a philosophical Spanish allegory regarding the human situation and the mystery of life.