Social allegory

1
Social allegory

• Definition
• Origin
• Typology
• 2 examples
• Animal Farm
• Lord of the Flies

2
Allegory definition

• Myths
• symbolic, not litteral
• Secondary meaning
• Interpretive process

3
Allegory origin

• Fables old lost cultures
• Aesop, 6th Century BC
• Pheadrus, Roman around year 0
• India, 5th Century BC

4
Allegory users

• Church Fathers
• Old Testament gt New Testament
• Love epics, Middle Age
• Novelists, 18th Century
• Gullivers Travels, Swift.

5
Allegory typology

• Cosmologic
• Meaning of stars, planets and human life.
• Biblical
• Biblical teachings through events in Bible.
• Social
• Human beings, institution, systems, etc.

6
Social allegory

• Political (systemic)
• Animal Farm
• Humanist (asystemic natural)
• Lord of the Flies

7
Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies

• Summaries
• Backgrounds
• Marxism, communismvs
• The beast within

8
Animal Farm Summary

• Animals take over farm
• 7 commandments
• pigs from comrades to dictators
• Changing facts
• production, state of the farm
• retelling history
• Snowball vs Napoleon
• Humans vs animals

9
Lord of the Flies Summary

• Arrival on the Island (bomb, plane)
• Ralph as chief
• Other children (Piggy, Jack, Simon)
• Clash Ralph vs Jack Rescue vs Adaptation
• New clan Jack as chief
• Murders
• Aboriginal costums

10
Animal Farm background

• Bolchevik revolution
• Rise of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin.
• Censorship, propaganda.
• Murders, accusations, etc.
• Like the others

11
Communism synthesis

• Capitalism is the exploitation of men by men.
  Soviet socialism is the opposite.
• A new prisoner arrives at a prison camp and is
  asked by another prisoner about the length of
  this sentence. "Seven years," he replies, "but
  there was no crime. I didn't do anything." The
  other prisoner responds, "You must be lying, the
  sentence for nothing is only five years."

12
Golding Background

• Human is a brute deep inside bloodthirsty beast
  within all of us.
• Society, political system doesnt matter.
• After WW II, atom bomb, mass killings,
  nazism-fascism.

13
Summary social allegory

• A way to represent the world by reproducing some
  of its iconic representations, actors, historical
  facts, etc.
• This aesthetic strategy can be used through all
  kinds of media.

14
Allegory of Love (Unfaithfulness)Veronese, 1570
15
WS 2 Your examples of social allegories

• Find as many examples as you can of social
  allegories in at least three different media or
  modes of representation.
• Fritz Lang, Metropolis
• How are they allegories, what do they reproduce
  or represent?