blish a relationship between the inner world of his fiction and the outer world of experience that will enable the fiction to exist in and through the acknowledged and systematic reality of that outer world. Allegory, that is, sacrifices a posture of realism in its own right in an attempt to serve the interests of an extrinsic reality.
Terence Martin stats that while Hawthorne used allegory, he was not a master allegorist:
In later years he looked with disfavor on what he called his 'blasted allegories'. . . the thinness of which caused Melville to say that Hawthorne needed to frequent the butcher, that he ought to have 'roast beef done rare.' He frequently made use of conventional devices, giving his characters names such as Gathergold and Dryasdust, conceiving them generally as the Cynic and the Seeker, and envisioning his material so that it would illuminate a general truth of the moral world.
Consider how allegory works in a story such as "Rappaccini's Daughter." In this story, Hawthorne explores different types of love and describes these types of love through the relationships among his characters. The love of a man for a woman seems to be the centerpiece of the story, but in truth it is the unhealthy love of a man for science that becomes the centerpiece, negating the love of a man for a woman as well as the love of a father for a daughter. The natural love of man and woman develops in a mysterious fashion in the course of the story, as it always seems that there is some unknown obstacle to this love, an obstacle the nature of which is not readily apparent. The way the story is structured, Hawthorne seems to be developing a variation on the more common story in which the love of a father for a daughter challenges the love of a young man for the daughter, with the father being jealous of the affections of his daughter and seeking to end the young man's attentions. It becomes apparent in the course of the story...