Of Symbol and Allegory

So, it may come to a surprise that Tolkien hated Allegory. And one may consider his Lord of the Rings is an Allegory, but it is not.

This gets to the subject of today's essay, of what is the significant difference between Symbol and Allegory? I will try to explain as best I can the difference, not in Tolkien's view, but in my own.

To me, Symbol is Symbol. It is not concrete, but rather abstract. It doesn't point to something in the literal world, where we can say, "This means this," but rather it strikes at an archetype and a form. A good example is that Tolkien's Orc Army is not literally the Raping Huns--though that's what he fought in World War I--but rather, a symbol, and aesthetic representation of evil. I almost said allegory--as I don't differentiate between the two, though maybe I ought.

But, should I cut between them, and read The Lord of the Rings, Sauron is not an allegorical representation of Hitler. Neither is the Ring an allegorical representation of power. Rather, Sauron is a symbol for Power-lust, and the ring a symbol of the instrument which coerces entire nations to go to war and destroy.

As, the Lord of the Rings the central conflict is Green versus Black. It is Lush versus Waste. It is Nature versus Industrialism. But even then... it becomes allegorical when it represents industrialism. Rather, the form nature ought to take, to shape our technologies around conforming them to be one with nature, that is what fights against the coercive powers of lust and greed and hate. 

No allegory. Tolkien's Orcs do not represent Asian or Black foes, coming across and destroying the Western World. Quite the opposite, it represents oppression coming across the valleys, making No Man's Land--which Tolkien witnessed first hand and scarred him deeply--and taking the might of industry, and stripping away entire landscapes for minerals, and destroying the Earth through combat.

Tolkien's work is a metaphor, but not an Allegory. Tolkien's themes are symbols, but not Allegorical representations of things in the world, but rather universal truths that reach across all time and space. It is not "Spice" in Dune, that we know it means oil. Rather, it is self contained within its own universe, and within its own tautological makeup, where it perfectly fits in the world, without reaching into this one. It is separate, but still, evil is understood to be evil, and good good. And in this separate existence, in the Lord of the Rings, we see human behavior, we see parallels to our own world, but not outright allegories. Symbols, but not Allegories.

A symbol is more rooted in the form, while an allegory is more rooted in the existential. A symbol exists in the imagination, an allegory exists in the real world. A symbol has no racial, cultural or ethnic specified, but transcends it, while the Allegory pokes at a thing which we can all say, "This is what it represents."

Nothing in Tolkien's world represents anything. It rather is what it is, and symbolizes the real power structures and struggles in the real world. Independent of the things in our world, but rather exist in his world unattached and unrelated. As they mimeses, but they do not mimic.