In the 1980s this story of class mobility and get-rich-quick ambition resonated with all the force of a modern parable.

The result is a fascinating modern parable, at times bitter, at times ridiculous, about the life of the Soviet literary intelligentsia.

Science can indeed be said to have opened our minds to the pearl as a modern parable.

A play based on this modern parable may lack the grandeur of The Winter's Tale, but the impulse to narrate our world remains the same.

It is a modern parable of the King and the Invisible Raiment.

The following are three modern parables on the way we grovel (New New Groveling, hereafter referred to as New2Groveling) today.

Shot so beautifully by Michael Spiller that its squalid Queens settings assume an instant mythic quality, "Henry Fool" is a perfect modern parable.

But there are other implicit religious messages which are genuine; these are modern religious parables.

The Herald described Boyle's story as a modern parable and a rebuke to people's tendency to judge others based on their physical appearance.

Yet by the surprising, if not fully convincing, finale of this dark modern parable, he seems to have embraced the age in all its glib self-interest.