Symbolism



Symbolism

In literature, a symbol is an object, a setting, an event, an animal, or even a person that functions in a story the way you’d expect it to but, more importantly, also stands for something more than itself, usually for something abstract. The white whale in Moby-Dick is a very real white whale in the novel, and Captain Ahab spends the whole book chasing it. But certain passages in that novel make clear to us that this whale is also associated with the mystery of evil in the world. That is how symbols work—by association, not equation.

Symbols invite the reader to participate in making sense of the text by building on the associations and connections that the symbols suggest. However, you must be careful not to start looking for symbols in everything you read: They won’t be there. Here are some guidelines to follow when you sense that a story is operating on a symbolic level:

1. Symbols are often visual.

2. When some event or object or setting is used as a symbol in a story, you will usually find that

the writer has given it a great deal of emphasis. Often it reappears throughout the story

(motif).

3. A symbol in literature is a form of figurative language. Like a metaphor, a symbol is

something else that is very different from it but that shares some quality. When you are

thinking about whether something is used symbolically, ask yourself this: Does this item also

stand for something essentially different form itself?

4. A symbol usually has something to do with a story’s theme.

There are two broad types—those that have universal suggestions of meaning (archetypes) and those where the suggested meaning comes not from the qualities inherent in themselves but from the way they are used in a work (contextual).

Archetype

I. Definition---any of several innate ideas or patterns in the psyche, expressed in

dreams, art, etc. as certain basic symbols or images.

II. Examples

A. images

1. Water: the mystery of creation; birth-death resurrection; purification and

redemption; fertility and growth.

a. the sea: the mother of all life; spiritual mystery and infinity; death

rebirth; timelessness and eternity; the unconscious.

b. rivers: death and rebirth (baptism); the flowing of time into eternity

2. Sun (fire and sky are closely related):creative energy; law in nature;

father principle (moon and Earth are associated with the mother);

passage of time and life.

a. rising sun: birth; creation; enlightenment.

b. setting sun: death.

3. Colors

a. red: energy, strength, warmth, love, celebration, blood

blood, sacrifice, violence, danger, anger

b. green: nature, growth, hope, fertility, youth, generosity

death and decay, jealousy and envy, inexperience

c. blue: truth, religious feeling, loyalty, peace, cleanliness and purity, harmony

cold, depression, lack of feeling

d. black (darkness): chaos, mystery, the unknown, death, primal wisdom,

the unconscious, evil, melancholy.

e. white: signifying in its positive aspects, light,

purity, innocence, and timelessness: in its negative aspects, death,

terror, the supernatural.

4. numbers

a. three: light, spiritual awareness and unity (cf. the Holy Trinity);

the male principle.

b. four: associated with circle, life cycle, four seasons, female principle,

earth, nature, four elements (earth, air, fire, water)

c. seven: the most potent of all symbolic numbers---signifying the union

of three and four, the completion of a cycle, perfect order.

5. garden: paradise, innocence, unspoiled beauty (especially feminine),

fertility.

6. desert: spiritual aridity, death, nihilism, hopelessness.

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