Here are four definitions of "allegory." See if any of them help.

Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with ... Example:; I have found the Ekphrasis poetry very useful in treaching allegory.

Allegory also occurs when an allusion is made with no introductory explanation and the speaker trusts the audience to make the connection, as in the following example, where reference is made to...

Allegory, defined with example images from art history, great quotations, and links to other resources. ... allegory - When the literal content of a work stands for abstract ideas,

Includes poems on poetry and "The World." ... This understandable popularity of allegory as a literary form spread through the Renaissance with Dante and Spenser and into the seventeenth century.

While adopting the form of the romantic epic as the basis of allegory throughout his entire poem, ... In the fifth canto of the first book, for example, Duessa, or Papal Falsehood, goes down to hell,

For example, a character might be named Miss Lovegood or Sir Fairjudge. Sometimes though a school story might include additional elements of allegory.

Animal Farm -- World/Russia; Russia; Literature; English Literature; Allegory; Orwell; George Orwell; Communism; Russian Communism; Bolsheviks; Soviet Union; ... Animated Satire; 1955; ... Links to Internet

NOTE: Though similar to both a series of symbols and an extended metaphor, the meaning of an allegory is more direct and less subject to ambiguity than a symbol; ... sleep and death, for example,

25. Greenfield, Sayre N. "The Politics of Allegory and Example." Genre 24 (1991): 233-55, esp. 238-43.