Godhanger - Allegory

The novel, Godhanger, is said to be an allegory of the story of Christ. Explain how the story of Christ is reflected through the narrative.

Dick King-Smith, author of Godhanger, weaves his narrative around the Biblical account of Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection. The woodland creatures are used to depicst Jesus, His twelve disciples, mankind and Satan. Accordingly Godhanger is an allegory - a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, characters, and events in the narrative link with meanings outside the story itself.   Godhanger has two meanings: Firstly, the literal account of the animal’s deliverance from the Gamkeeper and significantly, its symbolic representation Jesus’ redemption of mankind.
Godhanger is orientated in a British Woodland, where talking animals fear the hateful Gamekeeper (the antagonist) who violently kills vulnerable creatures, just as Satan “comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”   (John 10.10) In contrast the all-loving, all-knowing Skymaster teaches charity, wisdom and morality, to his twelve followers, in The Cedar of Lebanon (symbolically, the temple). The setting, characters, conflict, climax and resolution clearly correspond to the narrative of Jesus’ life.
Skymaster, the protagonist, clearly parallels Jesus. His humble birth and the visitation of the wise men, bearing gifts (a pine-cone, seashell and bell-heather), led by the star of David is depicted when the Skymaster tells of his birth in “a nest built of pine branches and twigs” (P. 72)   when “on the night before… the sky had been ablaze with strange lights” (P. 72) and three birds “carried an offering” (P. 72).   This mirrors the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth in Matthew 2:9-10 “and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them…they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
The rising action of the narrative describes the untimely death of woodland creatures and the constant love of the skymaster. A rabbit, jay-birds,...