Emblem in this sense refers to a didactic or moralizing combination of picture and text intended to draw the reader into a self-reflective examination of his or her own life.
Intellectuals became personified, with such characters often reflecting to their own situation and possible ways to right decisions in long, moralizing dialogue scenes.
In some communities, children piled their comic books in schoolyards and set them ablaze after being egged-on by moralizing parents, teachers, and clergymen.
The superego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the superego.