Talking about Terrible Things: The Craft of Allegory in Children's Literature

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E D ITOR : GW YN N E E LLEN A S H

Talking about Terrible Things: The Craft of Allegory in Children’s LiteratureUnfettered Imaginations

This issue’s column explores

different kinds of allegories found

in children’s literature.

BOOK RE V I E WS

TEACHERS OFTEN FACE the challenge of when and how to discuss difficult topics with children. How to respond when a child asks, “Will polar bears be ok?” (Kantrowitz & Springen, 2007, p. 80)? Or, “Who are the people who don’t like Jewish people?” Or, “How come Black people were slaves?” Or, “Why does my mom have to be in Afghanistan?” Teachers wonder what approaches to take to talk with children about issues like ecological dangers, intolerance, racism, and war. A lesson appropriate in a sixth-grade classroom is not necessarily appropriate in a first-grade one. And just because students are older, it doesn’t mean that the conversations get any easier. Even in colleges and universities, professors struggle with what has been termed, “Difficult Dialogues,” so much so that organi-zations have been developed to support such interactions (http://www.difficultdialogues.org).

This issue’s column of Unfettered Imaginations looks at models of allegory in writing for children. Allegory is seen as a method to broach a topic that is not easily discussable (Hamilton, 2011). This use is suggested because allegory is a rhetorical approach in which a story is told that is representative of a larger (and sometimes unrelated) issue. For example, in the well-known allegory, The Lorax (Seuss, 1971), the fate of the Truffula trees at the hands of the Once-ler’s needs to create and sell Thneeds is allegorical

to the wasteful use of natural resources in the service of unrestrained commercial interests.

Although allegory is related to an extended metaphor (see Ash, 2012), the two are different (Crisp, 2008). In metaphor, two unlike objects are compared. An allegory often relies on a fictional situation to convey a larger set of truths. In The Lorax (Seuss, 1971), the Truffula trees are natural resources, the Once-ler, a corporation, and Thneeds are commercial objects marketed in such a way as to create a need. Dr. Seuss’s fictional elements evoke insights into a real world situation. Other familiar examples of allegories include Animal Farm (Orwell, 1945) and Lord of the Flies (Golding, 1954).

Cognitive scientists argue that metaphor and allegory are processed differently. In metaphor, we process the relationship between the objects of comparison, as it is expressed linguistically. In allegory, we must determine situational relationships between objects that have no linguistic relationship (Gibbs, 2011). Mapping these relationships requires a high level understanding of both objects.

So how does this representative or symbolic relationship make the discussion of difficult topics more accessible?

Journal of Children’s Literature, 37(2), pp. 90-96. ©Children’s Literature Assembly ISSN 1521-7779

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VOL 38 NO 2 FALL 2012 JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

original slogan). As BAAA production increases, the sheep population mysteriously shrinks (A sheep in an illustra-tion on page 51 coyly asks his lamb to, “Please pass the mint sauce.”). The number of sheep diminishes until, “Eventually, there were only two sheep left. And one day they met for lunch. There is no record of when the last one disappeared” (pp. 58-61).

The Tin Forestby Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson

New York, NY: Penguin, 2001

In a place, “filled with all the things that no one wanted,” was a small house, “that looked out on other people’s garbage and bad weather.” The little old man who lives in the house spends his time trying to organize and clean up the garbage, a Sisyphean task, all the while dreaming of a wild forest teeming with animals. Soft illustrations, almost pointillistic, add to the dreamy mood. One day, the little old man creates a flower from the garbage, and he decides to build his own forest. This tin tree brings the birds; birds bring seeds; plants bring insects, quickly followed by animals. The final two-page spread shows the tin forest intermingled with the true forest that has grown up around it.

For younger students, who might have difficulty grasping the larger themes or topics, allegories can bring the ideas to them in more familiar situations. Rogers and Christian (2007) suggest that, “The text, itself, does not contain the meaning but holds a chain of possible meanings—brought to life by particular readers in particular contexts, times, geographic locales, etc.” (pp. 25-26). In this way allegory can be seen as malleable to individual contexts and experiences.

Further, allegory can serve to make discussion more possible by its very implicit/inferential nature. In allegory, although setting, characters, and action are explicit, the values assigned to those elements are constructed individually by the reader/listener (Hamilton, 2011). For example, nowhere in the text of The Lorax does the term, “conservation of natural resources,” occur. The implied relationship is constructed by the reader, or readers, perhaps through discussion of the text. In this way, children reading and discussing allegorical texts work together to socially construct an interpretation of the text.

• • •

Allegories of Consumption and Conservation

BAAAby David Macaulay

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1985

“There is no record of when the last person disappeared. The only person who could have recorded when the last person disappeared was the last person to disappear.

But no matter who left last, the place was deserted” (p. 1). So, opens BAAA. In a post-human world, sheep move into the now empty human environment, and eventually adopt human ways, from dress to work to commuting to overpopulation to food shortages. Each stark black and white page demonstrates sheep following in the footsteps of the humans, but the humor of sheep in suits is contrasted with thought-provoking observations. “Then things got worse, so laws were passed. And still some neighbor-hoods always seemed to have more of everything” (p. 36). Subtle clues in the illustrations guide the reader to the true nature of BAAA, the popular foodstuff that works to feed the now-starving sheep in a time of shortages (“Have a friend for dinner” on a billboard is mediated by a caret between friend and for, inserting the word over, possibly as a cover for the transparently suspicious nature of the


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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE VOL 38 NO 2 FALL 2012

What if we had a machine that could do everything for us? What would we do if it broke? Such is the quandary faced by the people of the planet Quirk when their Everything Machine goes down. After hundreds of years of having their Everything Machine do, well, everything for them, Quirkians must mow their own lawns, cook their own food, even color their own books! The clown-like Quirkians are quite humorous in the illustrations of their failed attempts as they try to relearn their long lost skills. They grow to love their work, but when the Everything Machine is fixed, they are happy their lives can go back to normal. However, they quickly find that they no longer want the Everything Machine to do everything!

The Wretched Stoneby Chris Van Allsburg

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1991

Van Allsburg’s stories and illustrations are well-loved by teachers and children. Yet many are challenged by this text, which purports to be, “Excerpts from the Log of the Rita Anne” as written by its captain. This ship of “good sailors” is filled with readers, musicians, and storytell-ers. The “clever crew” is adept at “singing and dancing or

The Everything Machineby Matt Novak

New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press, 2009




word choice signals the topic of Mem Fox’s allegory of fear and intolerance. The peacocks begin to fear the skills of the swans, which differ from their own, and to fear that the swans will make them conform to their way of life (although the swans have given no indication that they plan to do so). The peacocks begin to prepare sharpened feathers as weapons. The swans overhear the peacocks’ plans and begin their own stockpile. Simple blocked illustrations on the right page demonstrate the peacocks and swans working in their preparation for the other’s offense. A flying swan with a reed for her nest is mistaken for an attack, and soon no bird remains. But then, two eggs crack open, and these two birds are different; they see their similarities, rather than their differences. So they go off together, “in peace and unafraid, to face the day, and share the world.”

I Am Iby Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick

New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press, 2006

On one side of a river, a red-headed little boy, on the other, one with blue hair. Each declares, “I am I, King of everything! I am I, King of all I see!” Their words pass through the air, creating accordion wire on each side of the river. Next their bragging words create a dam which blocks the river and causes a flood, leaving each boy on his own small island. From the islands they begin screaming hatred at each other, and their words form a giant dragon who breathes fire, scorching the earth and drying the river, destroying everything. Finally the boys apologize, “I am I and I am sorry,” and rain returns to the river and

amusing each other with tales of past adventure.” But then, on a barren and bitter isle, they find The Wretched Stone, “a rock approximately two feet across…roughly textured, gray in color, but a portion of it is as flat and as smooth as glass.” From this surface comes an enchanting glow, which draws the crew under its spell. As the members of the crew spend more time with the stone, they stop reading, and singing, and storytelling. They begin to swing through the rigging, and then eventually they transform into silent and passive apes, albeit dressed in turn of the century sailor’s uniforms. The ape sailors are unable to break away from the allure of the stone, until a storm removes its glow. Eventually, by reading to them and playing the violin, the captain is able to re-awaken and transform his crew back to their former selves.

• • •

Allegories of Intolerance and Violence

Tusk Tuskby David McKee

London, United Kingdom: Andersen Press, 2006 (paperback)

In the beginning there were black elephants, and there were white elephants, and they didn’t like each other very much. In caricature-like illustrations, McKee presents us with elephants whose tusks look like handguns and whose angry scowls and furrowed brows suggest the violence about to take place. This simple story (most pages have 10 or fewer words) suggests intolerance at the most basic levels: purely outside appearances drive the hatred between the two groups of elephants. Living segregated lives on separate sides of the jungle, the elephants finally decide to kill each other, yet some, “peace-loving elephants from each side went to live deep in the darkest jungle” to avoid the killing. Eventually, all of the elephants are dead, and years pass without the sighting of an elephant. Then, grey elephants, the descendants of those who sought peace, emerge from the jungle. Yet even they are capable of intolerance, for as the story ends, “the little ears and the big ears have been giving each other funny looks.”

Feathers and Foolsby Mem Fox, illustrated by Nicholas Wilton

San Diego, CA: Voyager Books/Harcourt, 2000

“In a rambling garden, long ago and far away, there lived a pride of magnificent peacocks.” The use of pride as a


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more developed narrative than Tusk Tusk, and simple line drawings, Six Men addresses a similar theme, one of mutually assured destruction. Once the six men find their home, they become successful, and then begin to fear that someone will steal from them. So they trained soldiers. But when no one came to steal their riches, they began to worry that they were wasting their money on the soldiers. And thus they set the soldiers on their neighbors, to seize their lands and take their riches. “They soon grew to like this feeling of power, and the soldiers were sent to capture other farms.” Eventually the six men reach to the river. Those across the river have learned of them, and so they too began to train soldiers. Eventually, the sentries standing by the river shoot at the same bird, but both sides believe that the other side shot first. The armies kill until there is no one left alive, except six men on each side, “who turned their backs on one another and started to travel the world searching for a place where they might live and work in peace.”

The Little Boy Star: An Allegory of the Holocaustby Rachel Hausfater, illustrated by Olivier Latyk translated

from the French by Joëlle Zimmerman (Originally Le Petit

Garçon Étoile)

New York, NY: Milk & Cookies Press, 2001

In simple illustrations reminiscent of Le Petit Prince (English The Little Prince, de Saint-Exupéry, 1945), a young boy learns that he is a star. Yet, he doesn’t want to be a star because his star has too many points (it is a Star of David). The story itself contains no explicit references to the Holocaust, but when “star hunters” appear, the illustra-tion shows brown-shirted soldiers with swastika armbands and when, “the hunters caught the stars and took them away in dark trains,” the visual of prison camp with thick smoke pouring from its chimney, sprinkled with stars, make the allegory clear to those knowledgeable of World War II. Younger students with no knowledge of such history may need more guidance to understand why the boy star was alone, why he had to hide, and then learn to live again in full daylight.

Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaustby Eve Bunting, illustrated by Stephen Gammell

Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1980

The little white rabbit doesn’t know what to do when the Terrible Things come to his clearing in the woods. First they come for the animals with feathers, and all of the

the flowers, and the boys sit peacefully on their separate sides. A final overview shows us that the boys are actually sitting on a brick patio in a courtyard, their altercation imagined.

Six Menby David McKee

New York, NY: North/South Books, 2011

McKee (author of Tusk Tusk) tackles humans in Six Men, telling the story of six men who were, “searching for a place where they might live and work in peace.” With a




Martin Niemöller that was published in a book by Milton Mayer (1966):

First they came for the communists,and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.Then they came for the trade unionists,and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews,and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.Then they came for meand there was no one left to speak out for me.

Students could be ask to compare this quote to the book, seeing how each of the animals in the book represents a different group, and how the Terrible Things are Nazis.

In reading allegories, students can be encouraged to create charts that connect the allegorical relationships. For example, in The Wretched Stone, the students might recognize that the stone could be an allegory for a televi-sion, the sailors for students, and the captain their teacher. They could then create a chart such as:

The Wretched Stone Sailors The Captain

Television Students Our Teacher

Charts like these are used in formal analysis of allegori-cal relationships, but for students, they might be helpful in creating a visual analogy between the story they read and the greater theme.

Finally, students could create allegories of their own, using animals or other characters to illustrate a larger theme they would like to communicate to others. Discus-sions of theme may become clearer to students if they begin their story from the perspective of a theme they wish to emphasize. Students could then share these allegories with the other students, asking them to chart the allegori-cal relationships. Thus students could check to see if their allegory is clear to other readers. �

Gwynne Ash is an Associate Professor of Reading at Texas State University.

Email: [email protected]

other animals watch as the Terrible Things take the birds away. Little Rabbit asks Big Rabbit why they took the birds, but Big Rabbit replies, “Just be glad it wasn’t us they wanted” (n.p.). The Terrible Things return over and over, until only the rabbits are left. And then the Terrible Things come for the rabbits. Little Rabbit hides, reflect-ing on how all of the animals of the clearing should have helped each other, and then he runs away to tell others of the Terrible Things.

Like The Little Boy Star, there is no explicit discussion of the Holocaust in the text of Terrible Things. And unlike The Little Boy Star, Stephen Gammell’s black and white illustrations (while frightening) bear no clue that this pastoral tale of the animals in the clearing is an allegory of the Holocaust. However, in a note, Bunting makes her intention for the connection clear:

In Europe, during World War II, many people looked the other way while terrible things happened. They pretended not to know that their neighbors were being taken away and locked in concentration camps. They pretended not to hear their cries for help. The Nazis killed millions of Jews and others in the Holocaust. If everyone had stood together at the first sign of evil would this have happened?

Standing up for what you know is right is not always easy. Especially if the one you face is bigger and stronger than you. It is easier to look the other way. But if you do, terrible things can happen.

• • •

Talking about Terrible Things: Using Allegory in the ClassroomAs discussed in the introduction, allegory can be used to introduce difficult topics or themes, especially when students may not be mature enough to discuss some more challenging topics explicitly. For example, although Terrible Things is subtitled, “An Allegory of the Holocaust,” its theme might be interpreted by younger readers to be an allegory on bullying and standing up for others. Beginning with that discussion, how students might stand up for another child being bullied, the teacher can then lead the class to a larger historic context, and how the book applies to the Holocaust by reading the famous quote by Reverend


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Children’s Literature Cited (But Not Reviewed)

de Saint-Exupéry, A. (1945). Le petit prince. Paris, France: Gallimard. Dr. Suess. (1971). The lorax. New York, NY: Random House.

References

Ash, G. E. (2012). Catching lightning in a jar: The craft of metaphor in

children’s literature. Journal of Children’s Literature, 38(1), 69-74.

Crisp, P. (2008). Between extended metaphor and allegory: Is

blending enough? Language and Literature, 17(4), 291–308.

Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (2011). The allegorical impulse. Metaphor and

Symbol, 26(2), 121-130.

Golding, W. (1954/2011). Lord of the flies. New York, NY: Perigee Trade.

Hamilton, C. (2011). Allegory, blending, and censorship in modern

literature. Journal of Literary Semantics, 40(1), 23-42.

Kantrowitz, B., & Springen, K. (2007). Will polar bears be ok?

Newsweek, 149(16), 80.

Mayer, M. S. (1966). They thought they were free: The Germans,

1933-45. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Orwell, G. (1945/2003). Animal farm. New York, NY: Signet.

Rogers, R., Christian, J. (2007). ‘What could I say?’ A critical

discourse analysis of the construction of race in children’s

literature. Race Ethnicity & Education, 10(1), 21-46.


Talking about Terrible Things: The Craft of Allegory in Children's Literature

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