 When is a story more than just a story? Hi people, welcome to my channel. I am Arpata Karwa and in this video I'm going to talk about Can you guess that? When is a story more than a story? I'm going to talk about allegory and what is allegory? What are the kinds of allegory that we come across when we read literary pieces? See, allegory is a very very simple to understand. When you look at the allegorical piece you will see that they have compared two things which are not at all similar to each other. Like simile is a direct comparison, but in allegory the Comparison is not so direct. For example, have you watched the Bollywood movie Lagan? In that movie you see there is a group of villagers who are battling against the British Raj and They indulge in a cricket match where they have to fight against the Britishers And if they win then Britishers will leave the country. Now if you can just picture that in your mind You will see how this movie is very allegorical in nature Just like if you read a story about aliens who find themselves isolated when they come to a new land You might actually start thinking that these aliens Can be an allegorical representation of immigrants and the experience that Immigrants have when they are away from their native land or when they come to a different country So this is what allegory is all about. Allegory is Comparing two things which are not at all similar and you will be surprised to know that the word allegory has come from the Greek word Allegoria, which means wailed language So the origin of the word itself tells you the meaning that it is wailed language It will not outrightly denote anything. It is a very very very deeper Comparison that you eventually figure out when you read that work and you try to get out the hidden meanings When you're reading the words now, let's talk about the first kind of allegory, which is fables I'm pretty sure that in your childhood days You must have come across punch tantra stories which talked about animals and where major characters were animals Then if you had grandparents in your house, they might have told you dadi and nani ki kahanya During the night when you were not willing to sleep. So at that time also they were telling you fables now What are fables? Fables are a part of oral story-telling context and in this Kind of structure we find that they tell you stories where the major characters are animal and they indirectly Represents human being and human conditions and through animals they criticize certain human behavior a very apt example of fable is The story of grasshopper and the ant if you have not read the story, then do go and check the story It's a very very Influential story. The story is about ant and the grasshopper Ant is the one who works hard and who saves food for the upcoming winter season Whereas the grasshopper is chilling in summer and he's saying that oh my god I'm living in a happy day and future will take care of itself and when winter comes We find that ant is living in the hole very peacefully eating the food that she has saved during the summers Whereas grasshopper is struggling to survive. He's almost Dead and he goes to ant and ask her to give some food So these two characters grass and the house the grasshopper and the ant both of them allegorically Represents two set of people that we see around us The first set of people are very hard-working who work in order to save something for the future because they know that future is Unpredictable and they believe in the notion that through hard work you can achieve success Whereas the other set of people are those who believe in luck who believe in destiny and who think that you know Future will take care of itself. So we find that this is an allegorical story Which talks about the bitter truth of life that yes We need to work out if we want to survive in future Also, we find one very interesting thing about fables that esoph was the person who started writing fables he was a very poor man and He was there writing fables during the Greek time. So animal fables came from esoph so esoph is said to be Founder of fables the next important kind of allegory that we are going to talk about in this video is parables Look parables unlike fables. They don't use animals But they use human beings as characters and they have deeper moral and spiritual messages You'll find parables all around Christianity Jewish text Islamic text. So they have various parables which teach about values which teach about Spirituality for example in Bible. There is a very famous parable of good Sametarian Good Sametarian parable is a story about a man who is a Jewish traveler and this Jewish traveler is Injured deeply. He's beaten and he is almost About to die the priest the Christian priest. He comes there. He sees the injured man But does nothing then after some time a Sametarian comes Sametarian is basically A person who helps other people a Sametarian comes and that person helps the Jewish traveler Sametarian is Christian but in spite of the rivalry between Christian and Jewish He makes a point that he will going to help the Jewish person and that is when Jesus Christ remarks that The answer to the question that who is my neighbor the answer to this question Is that a person who helps an injured man is a true Christian and by this story by this parable He's actually teaching us that we all should help other people in spite of their religion caste and creed So this is how parable work and their functions on multiple levels and give multiple messages and meanings Now let's talk about some really famous examples of allegory from literature The first important example of allegory from literature is Plato's allegory of cave Plateau was a great Greek philosopher and he gave a beautiful allegory of cave where he said that There is a cave on one side of the cave fire is burning and on the other side people are standing now Fire is burning before them so people cannot see the fire But due to fire they can see their reflection on the other side of the wall on the wall of the cave So they think that this is the reality the shadows that they are seeing that is the reality out of these people few of them go out who are philosophers and these Philosophers when they go out and then when they see that there is a world beyond the cave and the reality is the sun and The reality is the world and what we are seeing the shadows that we are seeing on the wall is not the reality That is when he realizes what the real truth is all about. So through this allegory of cave Plato is trying to tell us that all the people on this earth are fools They will keep on looking at shadows and they will live their life thinking that this shadow is truth But few of them are philosophers who go out and see the actual truth But when they come back and tell the people that what the actual truth is sun is the actual truth There is a world outside the cave which is the actual truth people would not believe and that is what Humanity is all about human beings are so Concerned about themselves and they think that their views are so correct that they will never listen to other people So this was the beautiful allegory of cave presented by Plato another important allegory is Pilgrim progress written by John Bunyan in this book pilgrim progress John Bunyan talks about a character called Christian Who is going to from the city of destruction to the heavenly city of God? And while he goes on to that city he finds so many people coming to him We have people like faithful mercy Then there are people their places which he visit valley of salvation then he visits house of Disappointment so all these things he encounters and when he is going through this journey We find that this journey of Christian allegorically represents the journey of every human being we all take birth And our goal is to reach the heavenly city and while on this Journey we come across so many evil characters. There are so many good people that we meet We need to be with good people We need to keep ourselves away from a bad people and when we are living this kind of life We will come across certain situations which will try to test our patience and we need to be victorious And this is how we succeed in life and we move towards spiritual Salvation or we move towards self-realization. So this journey of Christian is an allegorical representation of journey of every man the final example that I'm going to give of allegory is a Fantastic work written by George Orwell, which is animal farm This animal farm talks about story of certain animals who are living in a farm and these animals are divided into two groups And these two groups represent the political leaders of that time So the Russian political the sovereign Russian political system is denoted through this Animal farm story and it is a beautiful allegory. So when you look at the characters, you see that they are perfectly Resembles the Russian leaders who were there at that time Stalin and other leaders and this is how George Orwell is actually Criticizing the Russian political scenario of that time So here I end this video before you leave do subscribe to my YouTube channel because I post videos for UGC net English aspirants on every weekend also at the same time if you've not visited my website Then do go and check the list of all the important writers that you must study if you are preparing for UGC net English You will also find all the previous year papers and the latest UGC net notification available on my website So do go and check that if you've not followed my pages on the social media Then do go and follow that to the link is given in the description box below We post go net quiz every day so that we can help UGC net aspirants with their preparation so if you too are preparing for UGC net then do go and check my Facebook Instagram and Google plus page and if you like it then do give it a big fine thumbs up So we'll be meeting in the next video lecture till the time we meet next happy learning keep loving literature