PARTISAN REVIEW
It is a simplification of a complex thing. It is not a complex thing
made easy, for in its fullest meaning it is no easier to understand
than the original concept was. But it is more accessible because, hav–
ing meaning on several planes, it can lead its audience step by step,
,at least as far as they can individually go. It is never a complication
of a simple thing, which perversion would render
it
fraudulent.
An
allegory is not meant to hide anything, an accusation fre–
quently brought against it.
It
is true that if our visionary went around
telling everybody indiscriminately that he had seen angels in his field,
he would make himself a public charge. He would soon be behind
bars, and maybe finished off with torture and burning. Joan was
only one case. His business, however, is to make himself understood
rather than to save himself from burning, and conversely, therefore,
it is to save himself from burning in order to make himself understood.
But a device for keeping an idea in the dark, necessary though it
may be at times, is not an allegory. Allegory has nothing to hide, and
it has everything to try to reveal.
II Illustration: Kafka's "The Burrow"
Kafka never tells what kind of creature it is that lives in
the burrow. Weare never given any indication of its size, except rela–
tively, when it talks about the "small fry" whose burrows interlace
its own without causing it ,annoyance, and a few of which it catches
and eats.
As
the "small fry" are not identified either, we still have
no hint of size. We may think of them as field mice. But since Kafka
has evidently been careful not to identify any creature, he must intend
to leave the concept open, thereby giving it an elasticity which en–
ables it to fit analogical situations of any size. Little is told us either
about the animal's biological characteristics. He lives in a place that
he has made for himself, in the most protected part of which he has
stored a quantity of food supplies, and sometimes he goes out to
forage in the open. Most creatures, including people, live in a sim–
ilar way.
He has one purpose in life: to protect himself from his enemies.
Weare never told what his enemies are, and the creature does not
seem quite to know himself. It seems he has never been attacked
by one, and so is not informed as to their methods. Therefore he
