noun (n)

• a short moral story (often with animal characters)(noun.communication)

  Synonym:
  apologue, fable, parable
  

  source: wordnet30
• a visible symbol representing an abstract idea(noun.communication)

  Synonym:
  emblem
  

  source: wordnet30
• an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances; an extended metaphor(noun.communication)

  source: wordnet30
• 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.(noun)

  source: webster1913