Abstract: Allegory, one of the most classic rhetorical discourses in ancient China, extensively participates in the construction of the discursive paradigms by means of irony-featured analogy, and realizes the function of conveying ethical instruction or aspirations through the expression of different thematic categories.Previous studies of Chinese allegories have been constrained by the western generic allegory and traditional stylistic approach, neglecting the consistent rhetorical characteristic of allegories.Therefore, this study combines modeling analysis and linguistic data interpretation to discover the rhetorical characteristic and the discursive function of classical Chinese allegories.It is found that the ironic meaning is made prominent by an “analogical comparison” between figurative things and abstract concepts, while the “irony-featured allegory” orienting to persuasive satire hides the ethical instruction implicitly.The allegories present the thematic categories in the paradigm of euphemism, symbolism or parallelism in order to realize the expression of the ethical instruction or noble aspirations.

Key words: allegory, irony-featured analogy, rhetoric