Can you find the symbol?

Literary Tools

These ideas are inspired by How To Read Literature Like A Professor.
I am going to try and cover a different tool each day.

7. Is that a symbol?

   1. If you think you have found a symbol, ask yourself what it means to you. Then ask if that fits the story.

   2. Brainstorm and listen to your instincts.

I may come back later and make a list of common symbols, but since just about anything can be a symbol I wanted to avoid an actual “list.” A few obvious examples are doves reoccurring as The Holy Spirit, mirrors as reflections of our souls, water as a passage to deeper understanding or new birth and clocks representing time. Some trickier ones might be snakes that we want to say are bad, but can often mean wisdom or knowledge, mazes or labyrinths can mean confusion or deeper enlightenment, or cages and fences can be for protection or imprisonment.

Authors are sometimes aware of the symbols they use and sometimes they are completely unaware until the work is finished and others have pointed the symbols out to them. Something that may be a symbol to you, and gives the story more meaning because you understand it that way doesn't mean the next person will get it at all. Princess Bride, Brother's Grimm and even Napoleon Dynamite are three examples of this. You either seem to “get it” and all its symbols and layers of meaning or your don't.

Here is short list of stories and movies I think are especially full of symbols: Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Matrix, Big Fish, Scarlet Letter, The Good Earth, Mists of Avalon, and Moby Dick. What they all have in common is the fact that “what they are about” is very different then “what happens” in the story. To me that is the best use of symbols because they allow you to enjoy the work on so many different levels.