Allegory (al’-le-go-ry): A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse.
The Most Important Man in the World
There was an elderly Emperor who lived in a big white house in the capital of the States United of America! He was the Most Important Man in the World (M.I.M.I.T.W). He was in charge of everything in the world (at least he thought he was). All he needed to do was sit at his desk in the big white house and sign orders abolishing everything the former tenant had decreed–from environmental policies to foreign policies.
M.I.M.I.T.W’s signature constituted God-like mandates: commandments from on high. Many of them began with the sacred words “Thou shalt not . . .” For example, “Thou shalt not spend tax dollars on climate change research . . .”
That’s power!
On the weekends M.I.M.I.T.W would put down his pen, get out of his chair, and fly to his beach chateau Margo del Beacho. Most recently, when he was there, he ate a “beautiful” chocolate cake and told the Navy to fire missiles and the Air Force to drop HUGE bombs. He loved eating “beautiful” chocolate cake, dining with other big shots, and blowing things up! He said it kept him young.
M.I.M.I.T.W also loved to threaten entire countries, if they seemed to be misbehaving. In addition, he was also quite happy that each weekend trip to his beach chateau only cost $3,000,000. In his view, that was a small price to pay to eat “beautiful” chocolate cake, play golf, hang out with other big shots, and blow stuff up via phone calls.
Most important though, he loved to go tweet-tweet late at night–making brief birdie songs on the Internet with crazy lyrics! The craziest one I heard was “I was wire tapped.” It had a sort of blues kick to it that was more than it deserved.
Sadly, it all came to an end when M.I.M.I.T.W choked on a piece of “beautiful” chocolate cake during a weekend visit to Margo del Beacho. Mr. Heimlich was off for the weekend and couldn’t help out.
We are so sorry.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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