Allegories and Children's Books

What is an allegory?A story in which things and people

represent something entirely other -- perhaps an idea or a philosophy.

Allegories typically contain a moral or lesson.

Can be classified as an extended metaphor.

Examples of Allegories and their meanings.Animal Farm

George Orwell's Animal Farm is probably one of the best known examples of this literary technique in which a farm governed by animals stands to represent the communist regime of Stalin in Russia before the Second World War. The pigs symbolize the government; the dogs are the police force; and the rest of the animals symbolize the working class.

Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding could not have better represented his idea

of human nature and a need to put self above the rest than the way he did with this acclaimed novel. Featuring a group of schoolboys stuck on an island, this novel had allegorical representations of the rational mind, democracy, order and civility, and many other such abstract terms.

Read The Giving Tree and answer

What is a possible allegory in the story? What textual evidence is there to help you in your identification?

What is the mood of this story? Use textual evidence to support your answer. Is it an effective mood to support the allegory that you identified? Why or why not?

Think about the topics, events, or issues that you identified as being turned into an allegory, why do you think it was changed into an allegory for children? That is, what about them would be too difficult for a child to understand and why?

Was this allegory successful in effectively discussing a serious topic in a way children could understand and learn from?

How do you know what the characters and events symbolically represent? How does the imagery impact the tone of the book? If you could change one thing about this book, what would it be and why? Give a specific example of how this story can apply to today’s society (or

Ardrey Kell, or life as a teenager, etc.). Look at the illustrations in the book. What seems to be emphasized?

What does the author want you to see first, notice most, etc? Why is this? If there are no illustrations, what would you suggest to draw to help children understand and relate to the book and subject matter? Why?

Watch The Giving Tree and answer the following constructive response:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZCP6

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Constructive response: answer in 4- 6 sentences.

How do the illustrations from the movie support the overall mood and theme of the allegory?

Dr. Seuss political activist?What do you already know about Dr. Seuss?

Chief editorial cartoonist for the leftist New York newspaper PM between 1941 and 1943.

Creates over 400 political cartoons about the war.

They range from encouragements to buy war bonds to sharp critiques of American isolationism to caricatures of Hitler and Mussolini, reflecting his strong support for the World War II effort and a biting disappointment with the US government’s inaction for the first part of the war.

Though not an allegory….Political cartoons are symbolic and stand for

something else.

Look at the following political cartoons and decipher the symbolic meaning and the political stand Dr. Seuss is taking.

What do the illustrations stand for?How do the words help to support the illustrations?What is the lesson, moral, or message that Dr. Seuss

is trying to make?Is the illustration effective in supporting Dr. Seuss’s

bias?

YOUR TURN!!!!

Choose an societal issue and create a political cartoon. Your cartoon must include:• Symbols and not just realistic illustrations.• Wording, dialogue, or titles that support your issue and your stance on the issue.• Identifiable moral, lesson, or message.

•What is not done in class is for homework.