Usually didactic (meant to impart a lesson), an allegory is a kind of story in which abstract concepts (such as love, war, or death) became objects, characters, or places in the story. For example, in...Usually didactic (meant to impart a lesson), an allegory is a kind of story in which abstract concepts (such as love, war, or death) became objects, characters, or places in the story. For example, in Hamlet, the scene of Old Hamlet being poisoned in the castle garden by his brother -- who is referred to as a “serpent” -- would likely be a familiar allusion to the Biblical Garden of Eden for highly religious Elizabethan readers (1.5.36).
