If you look at a lot of classic books, you’ll notice that many authors place symbols in their works to enhance the reading experience and character development. In the novel Speak, the main character Melinda, is going through a difficult time. After calling the cops on a party, everyone has disregarded her as a human being. With no friends, she has no where to go to, until she encounters the closet at school. She has turned the janitor’s closet into a safe haven for herself where she can let everything out without the fear of being judged by others. Coincidentally, it seems that Melinda not only chose the closet to be her sanctuary because it was empty, but also because they are both exceptionally similar. The closet is a place for Melinda to hide from reality and escape her problems. When Melinda says that the closet is, “abandoned—it has no purpose, no name,” the reader can infer that Melinda is talking about herself (Anderson 26). Ever since she was raped by Andy Evans, her purpose for life disappeared, she lost her identity, and she lost her voice. In the beginning of the novel, people ignore Melinda and make her feel invisible. Likewise, students avoid the closet because it is abandoned and no one knows about it. Melinda attempts to make everything right, but …show more content…
“Maya Angelou’s picture watches,” her as she begins to, “sweep and mop the floor” (Anderson 50). Even though she makes an attempt to make it perfect it never will be because it is simply just a janitor’s closet. This appears to be a metaphor relating to Melinda’s life as she tries to hide the fact that she was raped by making parts of high school enjoyable. During the middle of the novel, it is shown that Melinda is trying to fit in but no one will give her a chance. Melinda’s closet, is a place where she can be alone with her thoughts and not have to speak to anyone; but eventually, she will be able to speak
Although, for her, she has nothing more to focus on she trusts her imagination to pass the time. Over time she becomes more and more obsessed with the yellow wallpaper, which leaves her in shock. “The wallpaper becomes a projection screen of the narrator growing fright.” (Berman, p.47) This means that the narrator goes to herself on the wall. The isolated woman in the yellow paper is her own reflection. Something that the narrator still does not realize, she only feels the need to release the woman trapped in the wall. She refers to her room as a prison continuously. As she begins to feel isolated she projects her feelings on the yellow wallpaper, but the idea that the room is her prison goes from figurative to reality as insulation deepens her need to escape in some way. “Every time the narrator speaks, she is interrupted and contradicted until she begins to interrupt and contradict herself.” (Berman, p.55) She has her own plan for recovery. But unfortunately, her husband does not listen. For him, the only
A symbol is a person, object, or event that suggests more than its literal meaning. Symbols can be very useful in shedding light on a story, clarifying meaning that can’t be expressed with words. It may be hard to notice symbols at first, but while reflecting on the story or reading it a second time, the symbol is like a key that fits perfectly into a lock. The reason that symbols work so well is that we can associate something with a particular object. For example, a red rose symbolizes love and passion, and if there were red roses in a story we may associate that part of the story with love. Although many symbols can have simple meanings, such as a red rose, many have more complex meanings and require a careful reading to figure out its meaning. The first symbol that I noticed in Ethan Frome is the setting. It plays an important role in this story. The author spends much of the first few chapters describing the scene in a New England town Starkfield. When I think of a town called Starkfield, a gloomy, barren place with nothing that can grow comes to mind. As the author continues to describe this town, it just reinforces what I had originally thought.
Luckily, for Melinda she found the strength she needed in a special person and project to support and encourage her expression. So many victims of sexual assault are trapped inside their minds, kind of like the way this book reads. Like a series of letters, trapped from within someone else's mind. They are afraid to tell their story, for fear they will not be believed. But finding that one outlet that builds your inner strength gives you the courage to face your fears. The character transformation that Melinda made was remarkable. She started her freshman year out as an outsider and ended up feeling confident and rejuvenated.
Upon entering the room, the narrator comments, "I don't like our room one bit" (367). The windows are barred, there are rings in the wall, the wallpaper is torn in certain spots, the furniture is bolted to the floor, and the floor itself is splintered and scratched. The narrator mistakenly identifies the signs she sees in the bedroom as belonging to a former nursery, playroom, or gymnasium. She believes the "windows are barred for little children" (367), the "great, heavy" bed is nailed down to the floor so that the children would not have hurt themselves. She also believes that the gate at the top of the stairs serves the same purpose-- the previous owners of the home did not want the children to injure themselves by falling down the stairs. A closer reading of the different objects, however, reveals a room that once housed mental patients. The barred windows and gated stairs were to stop the patients from escaping; the torn wallpaper was a result of patient's fits of madness - after which they would be chained to the rings in the wall. These surroundings serve as a sign of the narrator's imprisonment. While she is not literally chained to the wall, she is confined to the room by her husband.
In Melinda Sordino’s freshman year of high school she encounters many conflicts, one of the biggest is that she must communicate with her parents about what is taking place in her life. On Thanksgiving morning, Melinda’s mother struggles preparing her store for Black Friday and the big dinner for that night. When Melinda enters the kitchen her mother sends her to the TV to watch the parades. After a while, she decides to go back to the kitchen for soda, where her mother instead, “pours her orange juice, which [she] can’t drink because it burns [her] scabby lips” (58). Mrs. Sordino’s oblivion towards Melinda makes it harder for her to communicate with her parents.The miscommunication throughout the family is what tears it apart, separating it
As a result, women were stuck at home, usually alone, until their husbands got home. In the story, Jane is at home staring at the wallpaper in her room. The wallpaper’s color is described by Jane as being “repellent, almost revolting” (3) and the pattern is “torturing” and “like a bad dream” (10). The description of the wallpaper represents Jane’s and all women’s thoughts about the ideologies and rules upheld by men prior to the First World War. It is made evident that this wallpaper represents the screen made up of men’s ideologies at the time caging in women. Jane is subconsciously repelled by this screen and represents her discovering continuously figuring out what she wants. Metaphorically, Jane is trapped in that room by a culture established by men. Furthermore, Jane compares the wallpaper’s pattern to bars putting further emphasis on her feelings of being trapped and helpless. Later in the narrative, she catches Jennie staring at the wallpaper’s pattern and then decides to study the pattern and determine what it means herself. Her study of the pattern is representative of her trying to analyze the situation in which she’s in. By studying the pattern, she progressively discovers herself, especially when she sees the woman behind the
The central characters in both “The Yellow Wallpaper” and A Doll’s House are fully aware of their niche in society. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator’s husband believes her illness to be a slight depression, and although she states "personally, I disagree with their ideas,” she knows she must acquiesce their requests anyway (Gilman 1). She says, “What is one to do?” (Gilman 1) The narrator continues to follow her husband’s ideals, although she knows them to be incorrect. She feels trapped in her relationship with her husband, as she has no free will and must stay in the nursery all day. She projects these feelings of entrapment onto the yellow wallpaper. She sees a complex and frustrating pattern, and hidden in the pattern are herself and othe...
I put it in the back of my closet, facing the wall” (Anderson 16-17). This shows her hatred towards herself and that she is very focused on her flaws and her outer appearance. Melinda is afraid to face herself and fears that if she does it will bring back the dreadful memories of the night she got raped. In addition, when Melinda is in her “refurbished” closet at school, she states, “The first thing to go is the mirror. It is screwed to the wall, so I cover it with a poster of Maya Angelou that the librarian gave me” (50). Melinda’s hate for mirrors is very apparent in this quote. She wants the mirror gone so badly that, when she cannot remove it, she just covers it. She would rather see someone else’s face looking back at her, rather than her own. Lastly, when Melinda is at her mom’s store, she says, “I scurry out to the three-way mirror.”…“I adjust the mirror so I can see reflections of reflections,
The Room itself represents the author’s unconscious protective cell that has encased her mind, represented by the woman, for a very long time. This cell is slowly deteriorating and losing control of her thoughts. I believe that this room is set up as a self-defense mechanism when the author herself is put into the asylum. She sets this false wall up to protect her from actually becoming insane and the longer she is in there the more the wall paper begins to deteriorate. This finally leads to her defense weakening until she is left with just madness and insanity. All of the characters throughout the story represent real life people with altered roles in her mind. While she is in the mental institute she blends reality with her subconscious, forming this story from events that are happening all around here in the real world.
Her identity of a wife and mother is stifled through the work of her husband and sister in law. Both John and his sister Jennie, do not want her to think about her condition, however that is the only thing she is able to think about. She had given birth to her baby a short time before moving into the house with the yellow wallpaper. Perhaps she suffered from postpartum depression, however not much was known about this during these times. If she had gotten proper treatment for her depression, maybe she would have overcome her illness. Instead, she was essentially locked away in a room and told to rest. She strives to form her own identity that has been lost due to her illness. Ultimately the narrator loses her whole identity to the wallpaper. She transforms from the depression filled wife and mother to one of the women creeping behind the wallpaper. The narrator destroys the wallpaper in an effort to escape the hold her husband has over her. In the end she loses her identity along with her
“Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used by the author to represent abstract ideas or concepts.” Symbolism in literature is the depth and hidden meaning in any piece of work. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a powerful and evocative novel laced with symbolism. The most obvious is the symbol of the scarlet letter itself, representing Hester’s sin of adultery. Hawthorne’s other symbols are less obvious and are very often obscured in the novel.
Symbolism. Why is it important in a novel? Why do authors incorporate symbols into their writing? Symbolism aids the reader in understanding what the author wants to portray. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, she writes about the racism in a small town in Alabama named Maycomb set in the 1930’s and about two children growing up and learning that their town is not as perfect as they thought. The theme topic appearance versus reality helps to get a better understanding of the symbols used in the novel and that you should not judge something by their appearance, you should judge by the reality of what it is. “As Atticus once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it.” (Scout page 77) In her novel, there are many symbols throughout the narrative that relate to the theme topic appearance versus reality. Harper Lee writes symbols into her novel, such as the snowman, Mrs. Dubose’s Camellia flower and Dolphus Raymond’s Coca-Cola bottle to help reinforce the theme topic of appearance versus reality throughout the novel.
The scene neatly encapsulates Edna’s rage at being confined in the domestic sphere and foreshadows her increasingly bold attempts, in subsequent chapters of the novel, to break through its boundaries. At first glance, the room appears to be the model of domestic harmony; “large,” “beautiful,” “rich” and “picturesque,” it would appear to be a welcoming, soothing haven for Edna. However, she is drawn past its obvious comforts to the open window, a familiar image in THE AWAKENING. From her vantage point in the second story of the house, Edna (who at this point in the narrative is still contained by the domestic/maternal sphere – she is “in” and “of” the house) gazes out at the wider world beyond.
Everywhere we look, we are constantly surrounded by images that create symbolism for a certain idea or object; an American flag to represent patriotism, a cross to represent religion, and an apple with a bite out of it to represent our modern generation's reliance on technology. When reading short stories or other pieces of literature, symbols can be much more difficult to pick up on than these symbols that we uncover in our everyday lives. Recognizing and describing symbols in a story or poem requires “great tact and perception” (Arp 305). Stories might even have to be read more than once to discover and understand the symbolism that his hidden within a word. The most significant symbols used in a piece of literature assist in creating a complete
Housekeeping is a novel written by Marilynne Robinson, whose title heavily implies a deeper meaning within itself. The story is centered around two girls, Ruth and Lucille, who have been left in the hands of others as a result of their mother 's suicide. The novel is very simplistic in it’s nature paralleling the type of lifestyle that most of the members of the family live, excluding of course Molly who goes to do missionary work and China, and also Helen who drives herself off of a cliff. After the death of Helen the two sisters, Lucille and Ruth, are sent to live with their grandmother in Fingerbone. While the grandmother is a very loving person, she struggles with relaying these same ways of going about life to her daughters, Molly, Helen, and Sylvia. This is one of the first implications that “housekeeping” is something other than a title. Throughout the novel we see each character 's version of “housekeeping.”