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Essay on symbolism in literature
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In the short story “Touching Bottom”, the author Kari Strutt uses a variety of examples of symbolism as a way to emphasize important traits about the narrator to the reader. First of all, Strutt uses the yellow towel as a symbol for the narrator’s feeling of comfort and security. For example, when the narrator opens her eyes for the first time underwater as a young girl “[she] [is] afraid”(124), but when her father greets her with a yellow towel after she surfaces “the fear, what [is] left of it, [evaporates]”(124). This shows the reader how the narrator finds safety in her yellow towel since all of the fear that she has trapped in her body is released when she is wrapped in the yellow towel. Furthermore, Strutt uses the contrast between murky
Ideally, the author and the audience must share mutual feelings, and the use of universal symbols in the novel is crucial in understanding the tragic that the family faces (Duckart n.pag). However, the use of universal symbols in Otsuka’s book takes a different dimension by attaching personal symbols to the ideas and feelings of the reader. In the end, nature, colors, and animals are recurrent symbols that are integral in embracing individual symbols that are attached to the tragic times that the Japanese-American family
At the beginning of the passage, Matheson uses a simile in order to illustrate the man's throat. In lines 1-2, the man's throat is described as "clammy turkey skin." The author then uses this comparison to make the reader feel disgust. Similarly, the same man is portrayed as having a grip "like skeleton fingers" in order to create a repulsive effect on the reader. Matheson provides personification in line 8 when he says "the sea [is] imprisoned under canvas," and uses a metaphor to characterize the sea as "roaring to escape." Both of these descriptions give the sea human qualities
Every novel embodies symbols that impute different elements of the plot and characters, though some symbols are right at the surface while others must be dug up from the core. The author of How To Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster, discusses symbols in his novel and states “They are what provide texture and depth to a work; without them, the literary world would be a little flat” (243). A symbol that is prevalent in The Shipping News, written by Annie Proulx, is the knot, as visually displayed all throughout the novel. The Shipping News discusses social and emotional change, along with growth, which all can be symbolized by the knot. While knots habitually symbolize conjointment, the implications of knots in this book symbolize strengths and weaknesses, past and present, as well as emotional and social change.
In this world, many people are nice, kind, and good, but not many people are truly kind-hearted, like Doris from the short story “Stray” by Cynthia Rylant. Doris is an only child from a family with a financial problem. Even in this family, Doris is a kind-hearted character, and keeps on being so throughout the story. She is kind-hearted because she took care of the puppy, she cried when the dog was taken away, and she saw the puppy and immediately took it inside.
I think from the attitude of the diver, he was suicidal. As he dove into the sea, he does so at a high speed and with reckless abandon, taking to account all the details of everything he sees as he plunged deeper into the sea. “swiftly descended/free falling, weightless”. He was doing all he could to forget about life as he descends “…. Lost images/fadingly remembered.” Initially in his descent into the ocean, the diver, having decided to end his life, treated the images in the sea as if they would be the last things he will see before his death, so I think he thought it best to savor his last moments while he had the time. When he got to the ship, he described all that was there. While I read the poem, I couldn’t help but conjure those images in my mind. The ship was very quiet and cold when he entered it but the silence drew him in and he was eager to go in, not minding the cold because at that moment he was suicidal and didn’t care about life. With the help of a flashlight, he saw chairs moving slowly and he labeled the movement as a “sad slow dance”. From this, I think the speaker is trying to point out that there are sad memories on the ship. There is no story of how the ship got to the bottom of the sea, but it seems the ship used to be a place of fun, celebration, and happiness. Now that it is wrecked and in the bottom of the sea, the
Must race confine us and define us?’ The story The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, written by Heidi W. Durrow, revolves around the protagonist Rachel, who has bi-racial parents. After her mother and two siblings plunge to their deaths from a Chicago building, young Rachel Morse survives and is sent to Portland. Furthermore, part of her story is learning about how she conform into the world while dealing with her ethnicity. Additionally, when Rachel’s moves in with her grandmother, she is faced with racial expectations at home and at school.
One of the key components of literature is the usage of elements, these elements of literature provide readers with underlying themes that authors put into their story. Without these elements of literature, the author would have no way to convey their true messages into their works. In Zora Neale Hurston’s story “Sweat”, Hurston uses many elements of literature to convey the seriousness and true relationship of couples that have a history of domestic violence. However, a specific element of literature that Hurston uses are symbols which give readers a clearer understanding of domestic abuse and most importantly, the characteristics of the victim and perpetrator of an abusive relationship. The symbols that Hurston uses in her story are what fortifies her plot and characters in “Sweat”.
Symbolism is commonly used by authors that make short stories. Guin is a prime example of how much symbolism is used in short stories such as “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “Sur.” In both of these stories Guin uses symbolism to show hidden meanings and ideas. In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” there is a perfect Utopian city, yet in this perfect city there is a child locked in a broom closet and it is never let out. A few people leave the city when they find out about the child, but most people stay. Furthermore, in “Sur” there is a group of girls that travel to the South Pole and reach it before anyone else, yet they leave no sign or marker at the South Pole. Guin’s stories are very farfetched and use many symbols. Both “Sur” and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” have many symbols such as colors, characters, objects, and weather. The four types of symbols that Guin uses help the readers understand the themes in her short stories. Although her stories are farfetched, they need symbolism in them or the reader would not understand the theme; therefore the symbols make Guin’s stories much more enjoyable.
There are more clues and subtle hints that reinforce these statements, most correlating to her mental illness and self-perception. The statements made through the use of said symbolism turns this story into an interesting viewpoint of a psychological breakdown.
The poems “Sea Rose” by H.D and “Vague Poem” by Elizabeth Bishop were both written by two women who took over the Victorian era. H.D’s works of writing were best known as experimental reflecting the themes of feminism and modernism from 1911-1961. While Bishop’s works possessed themes of longing to belong and grief. Both poems use imagery, which helps to make the poem more concrete for the reader. Using imagery helps to paint a picture with specific images, so we can understand it better and analyze it more. The poems “Sea Rose” and “Vague Poem” both use the metaphor of a rose to represent something that can harm you, even though it has beauty.
In “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” symbols are used to fulfill the quest of happiness and love. This love story has many symbols, which show hidden meaning. One can fully understand a story, if one can point out certain symbols. Symbols create ideas and images for the reader to better understand the story. (Symbol)Mabel, one of the two main characters in this story, is depressed and suicidal. After her mother died, she feels like there is nothing to live for. Her mother was the love and joy in her life; without her, she is lost. All she has left is her house, which she is extremely proud of, and her brother, which she seems not to care for. She decides to release herself from her troubles by drowning herself in a pond. The other main character, Dr. Fergusson, sees her and tries to save her life. This pond is a strong symbol with many meanings. It is a start of a new experience, and a change of two people’s lives.
The story’s theme is related to the reader by the use of color imagery, cynicism, human brotherhood, and the terrible beauty and savagery of nature. The symbols used to impart this theme to the reader and range from the obvious to the subtle. The obvious symbols include the time from the sinking to arrival on shore as a voyage of self-discovery, the four survivors in the dinghy as a microcosm of society, the shark as nature’s random destroyer of life, the sky personified as mysterious and unfathomable and the sea as mundane and easily comprehended by humans. The more subtle symbols include the cigars as representative of the crew and survivors, the oiler as the required sacrifice to nature’s indifference, and the dying legionnaire as an example of how to face death for the correspondent.
The human voyage into life is basically feeble, vulnerable, uncontrollable. Since the crew on a dangerous sea without hope are depicted as "the babes of the sea", it can be inferred that we are likely to be ignorant strangers in the universe. In addition to the danger we face, we have to also overcome the new challenges of the waves in the daily life. These waves are "most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall", requiring "a new leap, and a leap." Therefore, the incessant troubles arising from human conditions often bring about unpredictable crises as "shipwrecks are apropos of nothing." The tiny "open boat", which characters desperately cling to, signifies the weak, helpless, and vulnerable conditions of human life since it is deprived of other protection due to the shipwreck. The "open boat" also accentuates the "open suggestion of hopelessness" amid the wild waves of life. The crew of the boat perceive their precarious fate as "preposterous" and "absurd" so much so that they can feel the "tragic" aspect and "coldness of the water." At this point, the question of why they are forced to be "dragged away" and to "nibble the sacred cheese of life" raises a meaningful issue over life itself. This pessimistic view of life reflects the helpless human condition as well as the limitation of human life.
Symbolism was used to express the Captains minds set. In the beginning paragraphs, the Captain is viewed as depressed, apprehensive, and insecure. The Captain viewed the land as insecure, whereas the sea was stable. The Captain was secure with the sea, and wished he were more like it.
Write a comparison of The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World and The Drowned Giant, commenting in detail on the ways in which the authors' use language to convey their respective themes. "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "The Drowned Giant" by J.G. Ballard are both short stories written with similar plots but explore extremely different themes. In this essay I am going to compare the theme, plot, setting, language choices and stylistic effects between the two short stories and how all these relate back to theme itself. The themes of the stories are totally different. They are both about how societies react to the external world and exotic things, but the meanings are exactly opposite.