Use of Allegory in Anti-Transcententalist Literature

"...I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if though gettest it, Captain Ahab?" This quote from Moby Dick is an example of the use of allegory to symbolize the stupidity of vengeance. Several of the selections from the anti-transcendentalist period use allegory to symbolize ideas from the movement, such the vengeance in Moby Dick by Herman Melville, the greed in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Dr. …

…across a message in their works by using allegory. In Moby Dick, Melville was trying to show the ignorance of vengeance. In "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," Hawthorne shows the stupidity of greed. Finally, "The Raven" symbolizes evil and shows the consequences of not being able to let go of a loved one. All of these works are full of anti-transcendental elements represented by symbols that can easily be interpreted if the time is taken to look.