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Literary Devices
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
Key Examples in The Bell Jar
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—The Fig Tree:
In a famous passage, Esther employs allegory, imagining the various possible lives she might live as fruits dangling from a fig-tree:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor [...] I wanted each and every one of them [...] and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black [...]
Related Themes:
