How to Use allegory in a Sentence

allegory

noun

• Eleanor Kahn's cavelike set, with six lanterns overhead, suggests Plato's allegory of the cave.
  — Kerry Reid, chicagotribune.com, 19 May 2017
• Mr. Oz rejects any reading of his book as an allegory for his political beliefs.
  — Gal Beckerman, New York Times, 18 Nov. 2016
• For politicians, origin stories are also tools of power, and Cooper’s choice to start here is an allegory for her approach to her subject.
  — Jina Moore, New York Times, 17 Mar. 2017
• But the supreme achievement of Bresson’s film lies precisely in its straddling allegory and realism.
  — Sohrab Ahmari, WSJ, 28 Oct. 2016
• The story becomes an allegory for civil-rights struggles in general, trying not to obviously mimic any one group.
  — Trevor Fraser, OrlandoSentinel.com, 16 May 2017
• The best stories flow organically from their characters; here, those characters are nothing more than pawns in a clumsy allegory.
  — Judy Berman, TIME, 25 Oct. 2024
• But there the yin/yang allegory wasn’t too neat: Both guys were responsible for a romance novel suggesting deep shame for how things had been left with Nora.
  — Spencer Kornhaber and Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 28 May 2017
• In the best possible way, these contradictions are inconvenient and rude on the part of the author—to not ground the reader in either the reality or the allegory.
  — Jeff Vandermeer, The Atlantic, 9 May 2017
• One thing is sure as the bereaved Alexandra motors through a foreign country looking to unload her burden of ash and bone: Kostova isn’t afraid of a good allegory.
  — Chelsea Cain, New York Times, 26 May 2017
• Vigalondo uses these revelations, along with subsequent plot twists, as not-so-subtle allegory.
  — Tim Grierson, Popular Mechanics, 6 Apr. 2017
• To him, the story is an allegory for God’s love of mankind.
  — Laura Newberry, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 June 2019
• Time has passed for it to be seen as an allegory for wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
  — Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 1 Mar. 2024
• Netflix also lists the use of pills as part of the wider allegory.
  — Rory Sullivan, CNN, 7 Aug. 2020
• The song is sort of an allegory of feeling lost and getting through it.
  — Anne Nickoloff, cleveland, 28 Sep. 2021
• Most of the transplants died—an allegory, in Wiley’s view, for the failure of the colonial project.
  — Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, 26 Dec. 2022
• The book was read at the time as an allegory of the rise of the Nazis; Jünger, though a figure of the hard right, ultimately found the Nazis déclassé.
  — Thomas Meaney, The New Yorker, 27 Sep. 2021
• Plenty might find in that some sort of allegory for a battle for the soul of soccer.
  — Rory Smith, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2020
• The show is a thriller, a romance, and an epic and sobering allegory about mothers.
  — Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 19 Apr. 2023
• The Hazon Ish replied with an allegory from the Talmud.
  — New York Times, 25 Feb. 2021
• What came next was a detailed pitch for a World War II allegory.
  — Nick Romano, EW.com, 26 Oct. 2022
• It’s all a bit gross, but it’s also an allegory for the price of fame and artistic freedom.
  — Shannon Carlin, refinery29.com, 15 Aug. 2021
• The song is an allegory of feeling lost and getting through it.
  — Althea Legaspi, Rolling Stone, 29 Sep. 2021
• Some commenters reading the story were quick to see the Shed’s tale as an allegory.
  — Eli Rosenberg, The Seattle Times, 8 Dec. 2017
• The narrator reads the picture book as an allegory about a gay bar.
  — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 31 Dec. 2023
• The rope being, of course, that allegory of that bond between kids and parents.
  — Destiny Jackson, Deadline, 25 Sep. 2024
• The allegory describes human beings chained to the floor of a cave, forced to watch shadows of puppets cast on the wall by the light of a fire behind them.
  — Damon Linker, The Week, 8 Feb. 2022
• From a scene of pomegranates on the desert sand to a person slamming their head onto the ground, Gaga's video presents the film's symbols in her own allegory of pain.
  — Tomás Mier, PEOPLE.com, 18 Sep. 2020
• This was a movie that didn't just acknowledge the allegories of Marvel's X-Men comics but embraced them.
  — Peter Rubin, WIRED, 7 June 2019
• The Bible is an assortment of sacred myths, metaphors, and allegories born of a world very different than our own.
  — Jonathan L. Walton, Time, 22 June 2018
• This isn’t a horror film so much as a healthy allegory for anyone who feels differently after having a child.
  — Peter Debruge, Variety, 8 Sep. 2024

Last Updated: 25 Dec 2024