Meghan Vicks Signs And Symbols

Meghan Vicks’s article “The Semiotics of Zero” is an explanation of the use and effect of the concept of zero (0) in the short story “Signs and Symbols” by Vladimir Nabokov. The short story narrates a series of inconvenient events from the perspective of an elderly couple with a young, insane child. The skeleton of the narration is wrapped in symbolic references to the numbers zero (0), three (3), and five (5). As mentioned before, Meghan Vicks focuses on zero. In “The Semiotics of Zero”, Meghan asserts “Nabokov describes both husband and wife in terms that tell us more about who they are not, than about who they are” (Vicks 3). The conclusion that is made is that “it is nullification that characterizes both husband and wife” (Vicks 4). In

Meghan Vicks describes zero - in reference to the mathematics - as the reference point from which positive and negative is described (Vicks 8). However, the thesis of Banach-Tarski Paradox can be summed up in the equation 1+1=1. The mathematical concept describes that an object (a sphere of infinite points - specifically) can be split into two wholes. In the ‘plane of existence’ that the Paradox deals with encapsulates an ‘area’ in which two things can exist. There is an implied ‘+0’ that can be added to read “1+1=1+0”. ‘1’ represents existence. However, a simplified equation could read ‘1=0’. That statement means that zero exists. Existence (and non-existence) is zero. The ‘zero’ that is the reference point is defined as existing. ‘Zero’ defines existence and existence defines it. This creates a binary system of ‘zero’ and ‘not zero’(1). The elderly parents are described as the ‘not’ of everything. If the elderly couple is unlike everything else, then they must be the ‘existing zero’. They are defined by both existence and the dissimilarity from other existences, or non-existences, which is derived from the existence Mrs. Sol. The state that is defined by both existence and non-existence is the situation of zero. Therefore, the elderly couple is null,