What's the difference between allegory and anecdote?

Allegory


Definition:

  • (n.) A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal subject is described by another subject resembling it in its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus kept out of view, and we are left to collect the intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of the secondary to the primary subject.
  • (n.) Anything which represents by suggestive resemblance; an emblem.
  • (n.) A figure representation which has a meaning beyond notion directly conveyed by the object painted or sculptured.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Byatt said that, while she had not wished to present an allegory or a polemic, the story was impelled by a profound sense of gloom about the environment and indeed about all human endeavours.
  • (2) But the bedeviled foray also works as a potent allegory on the slow, vice-like workings of conscience, as guilt hunts down the protagonists with the shrieking remorselessness of Greek furies.
  • (3) Christians believed, and believe, that the body is not only physical, but also spiritual and mystical, and many believed it was an allegory of church, state and family.
  • (4) In a country addicted to novelty and invention, he was proceeding to supply an instant lore of allegory, myth and fable.
  • (5) They had become an allegory for unhappy love, a foreshadow of Romeo and Juliet set in the Hindu Kush .
  • (6) Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Macabre allegory’: Otto Dix’s The Triumph of Death (1934).
  • (7) Heavy with symbolism, analytical rather than dramatic, it attempts nothing less than an allegory of colonialism and apartheid, one that dares to linger in complexity."
  • (8) But even more than this bravura dramatic writing, the story of Dr Rieux's selfless struggle with the illness, and the different responses of other citizens, colleagues and chance acquaintances, unfolds an urgent allegory of war.
  • (9) Their music has long been free of such unnecessary clutter as metaphor, allegory, and poetic conceit.
  • (10) Bamba Issa took its inspiration from a Disney comic book, Donald Duck and The Magic Hourglass , which UFO felt was “an allegory for capitalism, its arrogance and shortcomings”.
  • (11) Could we fight back against a world ruled by men?” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Armed with a brush … Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting, by Gentileschi.
  • (12) So he positively enjoyed draping what is, in fact, a chilling allegory of paternal possessiveness and pseudo-scientific fanaticism, in the gaudy fabric of a "romance", just as the author pretends, in his pseudo-preface, to have discovered it among the works of "M de l'Aubépine" (French for "haw-thorn").
  • (13) The Double , it's said, is meant as an allegory: the straight man is Dostoevsky in real life, shy and often awkward; the arriviste is the author 2.0, the person he sometimes wished he was, who is quick-witted and irresistible to women.
  • (14) The sociology, the anthropology, the communication is so important, not like the veterinary or the wildlife or medical sciences," he told IRIN, explaining that epidemiological facts have to be translated in simple ways for ordinary people to understand, by using local allegories for instance.
  • (15) The film, like some of the original Apes movies, mixes intellect and allegory with adventure and special effects.
  • (16) They approached the cold war as melodrama and McCarthyism by way of allegory.
  • (17) Another way of reading it could be as an allegory about the self-destructive consequences of women's obsession with shaving.
  • (18) Clearly it is not so much a kiss he is portraying as an ecstatic allegory of all the copulations he can remember or imagine.
  • (19) She experimented towards the end, not always successfully, with symbol and allegory, and but for her success as a novelist would have been remembered as a great master of the short-story genre, which she always defended for its concentration, integrity and lack of compromise.
  • (20) Somehow the people who create television failed to create television, I believe Erin put it best when she referenced Plato's Allegory of the Cave – a very quick read if you would like to make this evening worthwhile.

Anecdote


Definition:

  • (n.) Unpublished narratives.
  • (n.) A particular or detached incident or fact of an interesting nature; a biographical incident or fragment; a single passage of private life.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) (4) Electrical stimulation by cutaneous devices or implants can give much benefit to some patients in whom other methods have failed and there are indications, not only from anecdote and clinical impression but also now from experimental physiology, that it may benefit by mechanisms of interaction at the first sensory synapse.
  • (2) Armed with this knowledge, the practitioner treating a breakdown injury can work to a solution based on scientific understanding rather than anecdotal information.
  • (3) So it’s not that we haven’t seen the progress we’d hoped for – in some places it really is that there are no services to be had.” Official as well as anecdotal feedback illustrates how serious the situation is, he says.
  • (4) Historically, this has been an area of conflicting and often anecdotal reports, and there are still significant gaps in our knowledge of the effects of temperature on tumor-host interactions.
  • (5) Three of the anecdotes around which David Cameron built his case in the debate became the subject of questioning and raised eyebrows, as reporters, bloggers and Twitter users launched their own factchecking operations.
  • (6) The current psychiatric literature is anecdotal and mostly restricted to discussion of psychiatric issues related to the BMT hospitalization itself.
  • (7) It added: "While the voluntary code for remuneration consultants specifies that they should not cross-sell services, anecdotal evidence and interviewees the High Pay Commission met during this research suggest this practice is widespread."
  • (8) Whereas a film documentary might piece together the sweatshop story through footage and anecdote, the game allows players to experience the system from the inside with all its cat's cradle of pressures and temptations.
  • (9) IIRR has also used humorous anecdotes and parables as educational devices.
  • (10) We are not going to change the system based on one man's anecdotes."
  • (11) New therapeutic approaches to immune thrombocytopenia during pregnancy appear to be possible and can be applied when there is a risk to the fetus, they are still either experimental or anecdotal and there is a real need for a well-designed clinical trial.
  • (12) The point of my anecdote is not to compare success bred by 2 very different education systems, but to say that in my experience children develop at different rates, and that any tests done on my son aged 5 would have had no prefictive value whatsoever.
  • (13) Although the existing outcome data are insufficient, there is a large array of possible treatment options and facilities; the clinician should attempt to match the patient with the program based on relevant clinical and anecdotal information.
  • (14) I get the feeling something's missing from this anecdote.
  • (15) Cable said: "There has been anecdotal evidence of abuse by certain employers, including in the public sector, of some vulnerable workers at the margins of the labour market."
  • (16) Few figures exist but anecdotally, online fundraising is being embraced by the majority for whom at least a "donate" button exists, says Cath Lee, chief executive of the Small Charities Coalition .
  • (17) There's no obvious way to lead into this anecdote, so I'll just come out with it: a nurse on one of the postnatal wards in our local hospital told my wife that her (my wife's) nipples might be "too flat" to breastfeed.
  • (18) Although, as yet, there is no specific treatment of epidermolysis bullosa (EB) simplex, anecdotal reports suggest the possible efficacy of one of the newer topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents, bufexamac.
  • (19) The rationale for recommendation of bed rest is largely anecdotal and is supported by almost all experienced angiographers responding to our questionnaire.
  • (20) On the return journey, the tired passengers exchange smuggling anecdotes and safety tips.