Language Development Through Resonance

#6 Symbolism in Fiction

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Symbols Defined

Symbolism is derived from the Greek work symballein, "to throw together." This expresses the essential quality of symbolism. It draws together two worlds and reveals an invisible world through presentation of the concrete material world.

Symbols are distinguished from signs which merely represent something else. For example a green light is a sign for "GO." It communicates "go," but it does not symbolize "going." Signs can be arbitrary. The ancients Greeks felt that symbols actually shared some sort of essence with the thing symbolized.

A symbol, on the other hand, is intended to reveal something inexpressible. It is usually tied to the thing it represents in some way. A symbol expresses part of the whole. For example, to an American citizen, the American flag is more than just a sign of patriotism; it is a symbol. If it were only a sign, desecration of the flag would not necessarily "desecrate" the thing itself.

Examples of Symbols

Symbols of Excellence: Award Ceremonies, LeBron James

Symbols of Shoddiness: Turkey, Amateur videos

Symbols of Wealth: Lexus, Rolex

Symbols of Poverty: Homelessness, Public assistance

Symbols and Story Resonance

Question: Consider the Symbols of Success and the Symbols of Failure in the American culture. Are they the same as the symbols for wealth and poverty? Why might that be? Do other cultures have identical symbols for Wealth/Success and Poverty/Failure?

Symbols help develop the author's plot, theme, and meanings through repeated stimulation of the reader's emotions. Like character and imagery, repeated, subtle references within the narrative are intended to suggest how readers should evaluate the story, how they should find meaning in it.

So Symbols are created for the reader, not the characters of the fiction. This means that to examine symbol development in a fiction, a critic identifies how the choice, placement, and development of the specific symbols in a work may or may not lead to an emotional realization on the part of a reader.

The goal of symbolic development in fiction is the reader's emotional realization that the fictive experience imitates a desirable view of "truth," or an idealized reality of life.

In art, there are several particular types of symbols. Public symbols are those widely understood and accepted by audiences. An artist who uses such symbols as a rose, singing bird, eagle (for the U.S.), lamb (for Christianity) understand how they will be understood by an audience. Private symbols are those unique to the artist. They may only be understood by the artist or those who study that artist. If a private symbol becomes widely accepted and is used by other writers, it becomes a conventional symbol.

Symbols in Nonfiction Writing

Symbols are used in nonfiction writing as well.

Details in essays are often modestly exaggerated to communicate symbolic meaning to a reader.

Letterheads often include symbolic terms or images to communicate meaning (shields for confidence, for example).

Symbols and Allegory

Symbolism can be distinguished from allegory in that an allegory commonly invents a world in order to comment on the real world. In symbolism, a writer usually presents what we view as the "real" world and through that reveals the higher truth of an eternal world. Also, an allegory normally has a system of equations in which this equals that, and something equals something else. In a symbolic representation, the concrete world is seen as a natural reflection of the eternal, and it is only through the real that the eternal can be seen. Reality, then extends through the symbolic to the eternal.

Allegory: A surrealistic presentation in which images and actions in the concrete world are given specific representations in an abstract sense. The goal is to comment on the abstract.

Summary

To summarize, then, symbols are more than just a thing that represents something else. Most artists see the symbol as somewhat higher and closer, connected to the thing it represents. this distinguishes a symbol from a metaphor. A metaphor compares one thing to another, and the comparison is determined by the writer. A poet may say, "My love is a rose." As a metaphor, the poet is writing about love, and using the rose as a vehicle. A symbolist would actually be writing about the rose, and through the rose, expressing a sense of the eternal.