Chapter 6 Symbolism
Now mind, I recognize no dichotomy between art and protest.
A symbol is a person, object, or event that suggests more than its literal meaning. This basic definition is simple enough, but the use of symbol in literature makes some students slightly nervous because they tend to regard it as a booby trap, a hidden device that can go off during a seemingly harmless class discussion. “I didn’t see that when I was reading the story” is a frequently heard comment. This sort of surprise and recognition is both natural and common. Most readers go through a story for the first time getting their bearings, figuring out what is happening to whom and so on. Patterns and significant details often require a second or third reading before they become evident — before a symbol sheds light on a story. Then the details of a work may suddenly fit together, and its meaning may be reinforced, clarified, or enlarged by the symbol. Symbolic meanings are usually embedded in the texture of a story, but they are not “hidden”; instead, they are carefully placed. Reading between the lines (where there is only space) is unnecessary. What is needed is a careful consideration of the elements of the story, a sensitivity to its language, and some common sense.
Common sense is a good place to begin. Symbols appear all around us; anything can be given symbolic significance. Without symbols our lives would be stark and vacant. Awareness of a writer’s use of symbols is not all that different from the kinds of perceptions and interpretations that allow us to make sense of our daily lives. We know, for example, that a ring used in a wedding is more than just a piece of jewelry because it suggests the unity and intimacy of a closed circle. The bride’s gown may be white because we tend to associate innocence and purity with that color. Or consider the meaning of a small polo pony sewn on a shirt or some other article of clothing. What started as a company trademark has gathered around it a range of meanings suggesting everything from quality and money to preppiness and silliness. The ring, the white gown, and the polo pony trademark are symbolic because each has meanings that go beyond its specific qualities and functions.
Symbols such as these that are widely recognized by a society or culture are called conventional symbols. The Christian cross, the Star of David, or a nation’s flag all have meanings understood by large groups of people. Certain kinds of experiences also have traditional meanings in Western cultures. Winter, the setting sun, and the color black suggest death, while spring, the rising sun, and the color green evoke images of youth and new beginnings. (It is worth noting, however, that individual cultures sometimes have their own conventions; some Eastern cultures associate white rather than black with death and mourning. And obviously the polo pony trademark would mean nothing to anyone totally unfamiliar with American culture.) These broadly shared symbolic meanings are second nature to us.
Writers use conventional symbols to reinforce meanings. Kate Chopin, for example, emphasizes the spring setting in “The Story of an Hour” as a way of suggesting the renewed sense of life that Mrs. Mallard feels when she thinks herself free from her husband.
A literary symbol can include traditional, conventional, or public meanings, but it may also be established internally by the total context of the work in which it appears. In “Soldier’s Home,” Hemingway does not use Krebs’s family home as a conventional symbol of safety, comfort, and refuge from the war. Instead, Krebs’s home becomes symbolic of provincial, erroneous presuppositions compounded by blind innocence, sentimentality, and smug middle-class respectability. The symbolic meaning of his home reveals that Krebs no longer shares his family’s and town’s view of the world. Their notions of love, the value of a respectable job, and a belief in God seem to him petty, complicated, and meaningless. The significance of Krebs’s home is determined by the events within the story, which reverse and subvert the traditional associations readers might bring to it. Krebs’s interactions with his family and the people in town reveal what home has come to mean to him.
A literary symbol can be a setting, character, action, object, name, or anything else in a work that maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings. Symbols cannot be restricted to a single meaning; they are suggestive rather than definitive. Their evocation of multiple meanings allows a writer to say more with less. Symbols are economical devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort to painstaking explanations that would make a story more like an essay than an experience. In Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the symbol is named in the title, and it suggests multiple meanings that unify the story. Wallpaper covers up a wall, hiding its imperfections with a decorative surface. This story is about revealing the truth, though, so the narrator finds the wallpaper not pleasing, but menacing. Like the rest cure her husband enforces, the wallpaper suffocates her. She not only rejects its hideous color and chaotic patterns, but she sees it as a living thing that oppresses a woman hiding behind it. Her action of tearing it off the wall represents much more than just a desire to redecorate.
When a character, object, or incident indicates a single, fixed meaning, the writer is using allegory rather than symbol. Whereas symbols have literal functions as well as multiple meanings, the primary focus in allegory is on the abstract idea called forth by the concrete object. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, published during the seventeenth century, is a classic example of allegory because the characters, action, and setting have no existence beyond their abstract meanings. Bunyan’s purpose is to teach his readers the exemplary way to salvation and heaven. The protagonist, named Christian, flees the City of Destruction in search of the Celestial City. Along the way he encounters characters who either help or hinder his spiritual journey. Among them are Mr. Worldly Wiseman, Faithful, Prudence, Piety, and a host of others named after the virtues or vices they display. These characters, places, and actions exist solely to illustrate religious doctrine. Allegory tends to be definitive rather than suggestive. It drives meaning into a corner and keeps it there. Most modern writers prefer the exploratory nature of symbol to the reductive nature of pure allegory.
Stories often include symbols that you may or may not perceive on a first reading. Their subtle use is a sign of a writer’s skill in weaving symbols into the fabric of the characters’ lives. Symbols may sometimes escape you, but that is probably better than finding symbols where only literal meanings are intended. Allow the text to help you determine whether a symbolic reading is appropriate. Once you are clear about what literally happens, read carefully and notice the placement of details that are emphasized. The pervasive references to time in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and the glass of scotch whiskey and milk that the narrator sends to his brother at the conclusion of Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” call attention to themselves and warrant symbolic readings. A symbol, however, need not be repeated to have an important purpose in a story. The drink that Sonny accepts is only mentioned at the end of the story and is accompanied by an allusion to the Bible, the “cup of trembling.” The unpleasant-sounding cocktail also represents a blend of the dangerous or self-destructive — whiskey, representing Sonny’s experiences — and his need for nurturing (milk). It was also the preferred drink of Charlie Parker, the jazz musician who is Sonny’s hero, and who died at a very young age from drug addiction, which is exactly what the narrator fears will happen to Sonny.
By keeping track of the total context of the story, you should be able to decide whether your reading is reasonable and consistent with the other facts; plenty of lemons in literature yield no symbolic meaning even if they are squeezed. Be sensitive to the meanings that the author associates with people, places, objects, and actions. You may not associate home with provincial innocence as Hemingway does in “Soldier’s Home,” but a close reading of the story will permit you to see how and why he constructs that symbolic meaning. If you treat stories like people — with tact and care — they ordinarily are accessible and enjoyable.
The next four stories — Louise Erdrich’s “The Red Convertible,” Ralph Ellison’s “King of the Bingo Game,” Cynthia Ozick’s “The Shawl,” and Ann Beattie’s “Janus” — rely on symbols to convey meanings that go far beyond the specific incidents described in their plots.