This article examines the narrative features of fictional allegories. Fictional allegory—often considered equivalent to "allegory" in Western literature and sometimes referred to as symbolic allegory—is defined as a story with a hidden meaning beneath its surface. In Persian literary tradition, allegory has typically been studied through a rhetorical lens; consequently, fictional allegories have been evaluated mainly by rhetorical criteria, without due attention to their narrative characteristics.
The present article demonstrates that the centrality of events and the progression along a single narrative line are among the most important features that facilitate an allegorical reading of a story. On the one hand, this study reveals the alignment between didactic objectives and narrative techniques in classical tales; on the other hand, it argues that the allegorical reading of the novel genre likewise depends on providing a summary of the plot based on events occurring along a single linear trajectory, and on constructing the second allegorical layer upon that basis.
Furthermore, with reference to the narrative distinction between description and event, the relationship between rhetorical and narrative aspects of allegory, as well as the way symbols emerge from fictional allegories, has also been examined.
Theology of Art