Symbol as a Literary Element - Research Paper Example

Symbol as a Literary Element Introduction In the most general sense, symbol is a notion that allows material objects and events to reflect in a particular context certain ideas that are different from their immediate meaning. Symbol is like a sign – however, this notion is broader since its essence is wider that simply pointing at something different from itself. Symbol has multiple meanings, and it combines several planes of reality into one single whole. Symbol is specific kind of image – it renders some abstract ideas and notions, and it is based on the irrational intuition. As Carroll has it: “Most basically, symbols are something used to represent something else. Symbols can represent ideas, concepts, beliefs, doctrines and feelings”. (Carroll 2006, p. 27) Even though the works of literature I have chosen for the analysis in this essay cannot be regarded as belonging purely to symbolism as a literary trend, the use of symbols and allusions in these works is truly astounding. These literary elements help the writers convey the main ideas of the text and get them over to the reader. In the report, I will be analysing symbols in two siort stories and two novels: N. Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, F. S. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne When writing his novels and short stories, Hawthorne was interested, above all, in the mysteries of human soul and personality, and his symbols are often dark and gloomy. The works of Nathaniel Hawthorne strike a balance between reality and myth, truth and symbol, fantasy and routine. The writer often prefers using metaphors, comparisons, and symbols rather then developing an original plot. N. Hawthorne turns metaphors and symbols into plots, and at the same time the basis for moral speculations: e.g. a priest whose face is covered with a veil (“The minister’s black veil”), a snake hiding in a man’s chest (“The egotism, or Bosom serpent”), the protagonist talking to his twin in the looking glass (“Monsieur du Miroir”), s girl made of snow plays with other children (“The Snow Image: A Childish Miracle”). However, all these examples are not mere descriptions of some weird cases, and neither they are simple allegories. Being initially metaphors, they turn into generalizing symbols, and thus a weird case is accepted by the reader as a phenomenon of the moral life of the modern society. Hawthorne paid attention predominantly to the symbols connected with the concepts of spirit, soul, consciousness, sin, guilt, etc. The system of these categories determines the actions of almost all of his characters. For N. Hawthorne, the spiritual life of America, its morals and principles were projections of the inner morality of every person. This inner morality was pictured by Hawthorne as a deep winding cave inhabited by both evil and good thoughts, and only in the most remote corners of this cave, there is pure good which is the real, innate nature of men. Though these good thoughts are not revealed often, it is them that provide humans with an opportunity to raise to the top of morality. Hawthorne believed that changing the reality should begin from releasing these initial roots of good. According to him, the ties connecting people are of many kinds, and belonging to different spheres of human activity. However, the most important ones are those from the sphere of spiritual existence, and it is these ties that make it possible to transform individual morality into the common one. In Hawthorne’s short stories, sin and lapse from virtue are not depicted directly, and exists as abstract information, hint, or legend. Of particular interest to Hawthorne, however, are the moral consequences of sin. Similarly, very important for him is the intent, sometimes even of a subconscious character. That is, perhaps, what differs him from the puritan writers, because for them the very facts of sin and punishment were of paramount importance, and the motives for sin were neglected whatsoever. In contrast to them, Hawthorne was interested in motive, intent, and the feeling of guilt. Whereas the Puritanism proclaimed that people who have not sinned are sinless, and are therefore separated from the sinners, N. Hawthorne could not accept this approach. He thought that there are almost no sinless people (both in deeds and thoughts), and the rest of people are all sinners – who have either actually conducted the sin, or intended to do so. For instance, in Young Goodman Brown, the deacons “have drunk the communion wine” with the devil; town’s minister and Deacon Gookin are obviously acquainted with the devil as well; and even Goody Cloyse, “a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth”, meets the devil in the woods as “her old friend” and offers him to take Brown “into communion”. …irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. (Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”) In Hawthorne’s works, one of the key principles is the one of indefiniteness which is revealed in plot, composition, characters, and especially in the system of indefinite symbols that can have multiple meanings. Sometimes it seems that the prejudices and legends are mixed with reality, and therefore the reality is pictured to the reader as a manifold phenomenon, allowing applying multiple criteria, evaluations, and interpretations. Indefiniteness, intuition, and imagination were the basis for Hawthorne’s symbols. All in all, Nathaniel Hawthorne inclined to interpret the reality symbolically, and very often he is called the father of romantic symbolism in American literature. His short stories and novels are saturated with symbols – simple and complex, universal and local ones, but almost always – indefinite. Hawthorne’s symbols are inseparable unities of an idea and an image that can only exist together. In Young Goodman Brown, the symbols reflect the problem of moral speculations. In fact, the entire short story is a moral allegory, and the characters of the story embody particular ideas. However, it is hardly possible to discover these ideas if we try to read the short story only on ideological level. For example, the protagonist in Young Goodman Brown embodies purity and innocence, his wife – faith, but what exactly happens in the forest during the meeting with the devil looms indefinite, and the final of the story is not very clear either. The protagonist leaves his devoted wife Faith to go to the forest, which is for Hawthorne a typical place for some evil deeds, and is therefore a powerful romantic symbol. The man he meets in the forest is devil – a symbol of evil in itself. Young Goodman Brow” is considered “the most direct, unabstracted depiction of a devil that exists in Hawthorne’s fiction”. (Maus 2002, p. 76) It is very symbolic as well that Goodman Brown and devil resemble each other, and it makes the reader think that, indeed, there are no utterly good or utterly bad people, and very often it is very hard to differentiate between the good and the evil in one’s actions and thoughts. This idea is conveyed as well by the dialogue between the characters during which the devil clearly shows to Brown “the models of good that Brown upholds are actually in the service of evil. This technique not only destroys their value as positive contrasts to the devil, but makes Brown passively complicit, since one after another of the exemplary Puritan figures are shown to be evil at the core”. (Maus 2002, p. 76) In Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, it is implied that the author believes in existence of some supernatural power that guides a man, some universal law that is out of our hands, and that we cannot understand, much less control. Hawthorne believes that this power ensures the regulation of human existence, so that is does not turn into complete chaos. However, he does not know whether this power is evil or good, and moreover he is not even trying to answer this question. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson In Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, the plot is very simple: all the inhabitants of a small village are waiting for the annual lottery which is the main event in their lives. Nobody really remembers when and why this tradition emerged. On the day of lottery, everybody gathers in the square to find out the name of the person who has been chosen… and then stone him or her to death. I have chosen this short fantastic story for this report for the reason that its rather unexpected ending is full of dark gothic symbols. Same as in N. Hawthorne’s works, the symbols in Shirley Jackson’s stories are very manifold. There are many viewpoints concerning the system of symbols in The Lottery – some view them as a symbolic representation of the relations of the South America with the Northern states. “Although Jackson was writing about a highly mechanized farming community in the twentieth century, the world she described was organized around an atavism. Jackson’s agricultural community sacrificed a resident every year to ensure that the village’s crops would be bountiful”. (Walker 2004) Some state that the story’s symbols are entirely based on the writer’s personal experience claiming that people were hostile to her , and “the normal activities that took place in The Lottery [symbolize] her getting married and having children like ordinary people”. (Xanders 2007) Jackson’s symbols are of different character. Though some of them are often regarded as mere reflections of Shirley’s own life; it would be wrong to state that this was the only source for her symbolism – as it was pinpointed by her husband Stanley Edgar Hyman, sometimes the works of S. Jackson were misinterpreted because her “fierce visions of dissociation and madness, of alienation and withdrawal, of cruelty and terror” were understood as “personal, even neurotic, fantasies”, whereas they should be perceived as “a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb”. (Hyman 1965, p. viii) Apart from these features of the contemporary society, Jackson reflects the position of women in the society, and feminist critics often claim that the symbols in The Lottery are the embodiment of “female characters’ isolation, loneliness, and fragmenting identities, their simultaneous inability to relate to the world outside themselves or to function autonomously”. (Hague 2005) However, it is not only about the position of females, - her story symbolizes the society in the whole, “for her apocalyptic consciousness, sinister children, and scathing portraits of nuclear families and their suburban environments, her depiction of a quotidian and predictable world that can suddenly metamorphose into the terrifying and the bizarre, reveal her characters’ reactions to a culture of repression, containment, and paranoia”. (Hague 2005) The name of Tessie Hutchinson in The Lottery is also very symbolic as it is associated with Anne Hutchinson who was convicted as a heretic by the Puritan community in 1638. Moreover, it certainly unites S, Jackson with N. Hawthorne who paid a considerable attention to the Puritanism in his works. Very significant is a quite unexpected symbol of a child as a destructive force – innocent children who at the beginning of the story seem to play gathering the stones into a pile all of a sudden become ruthless murderers throwing stones at people. This makes S. Jackson’s views very close to those of N. Hawthorne, as they convey the same idea – nobody in innocent and sinless. Therefore, though N. Hawthorne and S. Jackson lived in different epochs, their symbols are sometimes very similar. The Great Gatsby by F. S. Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is, according to John Aldridge, one of F.S. Fitzgerald’s attempts to express the essence of the contemporary American life. Currently researchers pay attention to the fact that the symbolic meaning of the novel has long been neglected and overviewed, and it is only after the World War II that it began hitting the highlight. In Great Gatsby, everything is ambiguous: from the main hero’s behaviour, past and manners to the plot itself which comprises the elements of “mysterious novels”, crime fictions, philosophic essay and romantic intrigue. Therefore, the entire novel is saturated with metaphors and symbols which are also contrasted: carnival in Gatsby’s house –and the “Valley of Ashes” nearby, “green light” of happiness – and dead eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, “blue and gigantic” which “look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose”. This ambiguity also reveals itself in contrasting tragedy and feast, conviviality and cold mercenariness, joy and coldness, love and putrefaction. The magic of carnival which has been going on during almost the whole novel becomes dramatic because of its closeness to the deadly place – the “Valley of Ashes”: here Buchanan’s mistress Myrtle will be killed by Daisy in a car accident, and Gatsby will forfeit his life for the crime he had never committed. To get to Gatsby’s house one has to pass the board with cold and empty eyes of an idol reigning over a dust-hole of wasted lives and disappointed hopes. This image is symbolic of the crash of the American dream which brings to complete devastation of personality of someone who had sacrificed his life at the altar of wealth. The board with these frightening eyes finds itself on the “Valley of Ashes”. Here is how Fitzgerald describes the valley: About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. The motive of waste in the novel is largely developed due to the symbolism of the “Valley of Ashes” which embodies the atmosphere of evil in the novel. The episode of a drunken party where Tom introduces Nick, the narrator, to his mistress, also depicts the evil which is rooted in the “Valley of Ashes”. Fitzgerald’s letters tell that one of the variants of the novel’s title was “Among the ash heaps and millionaires”, and though this title was rejected, those ash heaps remained in the book. The “Valley of Ashes” which serves as a background for tragic events of the novel is one of the most important images of Great Gatsby. This symbol has two meanings in the novel: literally, it is the wasteland existing in reality where the Wilsons live. Allegorically, this wasteland gets its meaning as the action of the novel develops: it is the triumph of gray reality and materiality of people’s lives and the gloomy tenement of “the ash-gray men” devoid of any ideals and spiritually wasted. The “Valley of Ashes” is the symbol of the lives of the whole generation of young people who have lost their illusions completely and live in the present not thinking about the future. The description of the “Valley of Ashes” at the beginning of the second chapter of The Great Gatsby is the key to the symbolic grayness which covers both people and things (anaemic, ghostly-looking Mr Wilson, Catherine with “a complexion powdered milky white”, pale Mr McKee, Daisy dressed in white (usually the color of purity, but in the novel obviously symbolising ashes and moral decay)), and perhaps it is there that the “foul dust floated in the wake of [Gatsby’s] dreams” comes from. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Symbols are used by Steinbeck in his novel Of Mice and Men to pinpoint a deeply rooted conflict between the individual and the society. There is an obvious contradiction between the dream of having own house and land (that is not only Lennie and George’s, but shared by many people who work at ranches). As Crooks philosophically states: “Ever’body wants a little piece of lan' Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head”. In this way, John Steinbeck lays emphasis upon the tragic gap existing between dreams and reality of a human being, and the situation seems still more tragic because this dream is not – or, at least, is not supposed to be – unattainable, it is a very natural striving of a human being to have something of his or her own, cultivate the land, and live in a small house with people he or she loves, and without having to work for somebody else: in fact, all that Lennie and George are dreaming of is “a little house”, “little fat iron stove”, a fire in this stove during the winter, with a small piece of land so that not to work too hard – “maybe six, seven hours a day”, without having “to buck no barley eleven hours a day”, keeping rabbits and taking care of them, keeping as well “a few pigeons to go flyin' around the win'mill”, and being the masters in their own house just as being masters of their own life: “…it'd be our own, an' nobody could can us. If we don't like a guy we can say, 'Get the hell out,' and by God he's got to do it. An' if a fren' come along, why we'd have an extra bunk, an' we'd say, 'Why don't you spen' the night?' an' by God he would.” We have already mentioned before that the title of John Steinbeck’s novel is important for better understanding of its themes. The title is of a symbolic character: it should, first of all, be viewed as an allusion to the poem that served as its source – Robert Burns’ To a Mouse that is, in itself, an apology of a man to a mouse whose nest he had destroyed while ploughing a field. The final lines of the poem express the sorrow of the man over what he had done, and at the same time the philosophical idea of how the destiny of a man and his dream can be destroyed by some outer forces same easily as the nest of a mouse by a plough: But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promised joy. (Robert Burns, To a Mouse) In the title of the novel itself, the reference is made to Robert Burns’ pitying those people and animals whose houses (and dreams, for that matter) are destroyed by some outer forces, and all that is left for them is grief and pain. Robert Burns shows how helpless are both mice and people in the face of the forces of the nature’s fury – and we see how the nest of Burns’ mouse is demolished, same as Lennie and George’s own house, which, even though it only existed in their dreams, has almost become possible to sense and envisage for them, and that served as a source of inspiration and made their lives meaningful. In his poem, the Scottish poet actually stresses how much happier a mouse is compared to himself, as a human being does not only has grief over the present troubles – he or she can foresee the future problems and get discouraged by the fact that the future is not going to be bright, and his dreams are going to crash: Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But, och! I backward cast my e'e On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear! (Robert Burns, To a Mouse) The farm that only existed in the dreams of the two friends, Lennie and George, is also a powerful symbol – the symbol of a dream that is very fragile in the face of the cruelty of the world around, and can easily be crashed. Lennie and George’s aspirations to have their own house are sharply contrasted to the ranch in the valley where they have to work, as here people live just like animas, without caring for anyone, and only performing physical work that is for them simply means to survive, get some food and money that is mainly spend on drinking whiskey and having sex with prostitutes in Susy’s or Clara’s house. Symbolically, the town that is the closest to the ranch is called Soledad – meaning ‘lonely’ in Spanish. Loneliness and detachment is key attribute of the lives of everyone in the story, except Lennie and George: even Curley and his wife are not close, and that is why she seeks communication with other men while he plays cards with the guys he can hardly name his true friends. Therefore, the name of the novel makes it impossible to perceive the text only in its direct meaning – this deeply tragic story is a sort of literary game, playing with images and concepts, allusions and reality. Such a nature of the novel is attributed to its main problem. Very important symbols in the novel are also animals. As John Steinbeck himself wrote about the essence of his novel, “This is at once the sadness, the greatness, and the triumph of our species”. (cited from: Johnson 1997, p. 15) The use of the word “species” here is extremely important since it immediately evokes associations with the animal world, and places humans on the same shelf with animals (by the way, exactly the same effect is produced by the novel’s title where mice and men are present together, and, which is more, mice “precede” men). According to Heller and Volkova, Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is “the story of the human potential to rise above the animal level to a finer spirit. The new element introduced in the story, however, is the power of a society, formed of nature’s baser forces, to destroy this finer human spirit” (Johnson 1997, p. 15). Therefore, in J. Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the image of a mouse plays a symbolic role: it allows the writer to lay emphasis upon the issue of insignificance of a human life in the cruel world, presence on animal traits and features in the characters of the novel (especially big and clumsy Lennie who looks like a bear), and, of course, the animal-like, wild and cruel nature of the society in which “Homo homini lupus ist”, and in which is it so easy to lose the human face, simple human dream, and spirit. Of Mice and Men is the novel about real life which “must always battle and seek to rise above an opposite death force found in devouring, dog-eat-dog nature and in the deadening smallness of men whose vision is limited to the mundane practicalities of natural survival”. (Johnson 1997, p. 15) Symbolic is not only the image of a mouse – in fact, it would be more correct to say that the very concept of an animal is one of the most important symbols in the novel. For example, Lennie is also compared to a dog (“a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball to its master”) – once in a scene with Crooks, when he is trying his hardest to make the old man like him, and lastly, in the final scene of the novel when George is going to kill him, there is obviously a link to the old dog of Candy (“a dragfooted sheep dog, gray of muzzle, and with pale, blind old eyes”) who had been killed before only because she was old and no more wanted. Moreover, Lennie likes animals himself, especially the little puppy, mice, and, most of all, the rabbits who implement his rosiest dream of freedom and happy life. But ironically, though these are Lennie and Candy who bear resemblance or are associated with animals, in fact the true animal-like characters are not these men, but Carlson (who kills Candy’s old dog) an Curley (who has to fight all the time with the surrounding people, thus demonstrating his physical strength and influence). Whereas Lennie who tends to kill mice and who also killed puppy and, finally, a young woman, regrets having done this, showing truly human feelings and compassion, Carlson does not hesitate to shoot an old dog, and at the end of the story he is surprised at seeing George’s horrible state after his having killed his best friend, almost a brother, asking his mate: “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” Though directly compared to an animal, mentally-challenged Lennie has the human feelings of warmth, attachment, and commitment – after all, his and George’s friendship seems to be the only ‘normal’ relationship in the novel – the one when they can rightfully say “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you”. Conclusion The symbolists believed that the real world is hidden somewhere behind the visible world surrounding us, and it is only possible to perceive this real world by means of creativity, illusions, and art. The works of symbolists often contain mystic images, supernatural concepts, religious and philosophical postulates. Therefore, the use of symbols becomes especially topical for the epochs when people are dissatisfied with the reality. Symbols serve as a kind of “spiritual bridge” between the real world of physical objects and the ideal world of ideas and notions. Apart from that, a somewhat “unhealthy” nature of symbol is often emphasised, as symbolism is (almost in all cases) about escapism: Symbolic thinking is not the exclusive privilege of the child, of the poet or of the unbalanced mind: it is consubstantial with human existence, it comes before language and discursive reason. Images, symbols and myths are not irresponsible creations of the psyche; they respond to a need and fulfil a function, that of bringing to light the most hidden modalities of being. (Eliade 1961, p. 12) Symbol is a powerful technique used by many writers, and it normally appears in the works of literature that pinpoint the difference between the reality and the dream world. Works Cited 1. Carroll, C. (2006, September). “Symbols in Art”, Arts & Activities, 140, 1. 2. Eliade, M. (1961). Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, transl. by Philip Mairet, Sheed Andrews and McMee, Kansas City, KS. 3. Hague, A. (2005). “A Faithful Anatomy of Our Times: Reassessing Shirley Jackson”, Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies, 26, 2. 4. Hyman, S. E. (1965). Preface. In: The Magic of Shirley Jackson, by Shirley Jackson, Farrar, New York. 5. Johnson, C. D. (1997). Understanding of Mice and Men, the Red Pony, and the Pearl: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. 6. Maus, D. (2002). “The Devils in the Details: The Role of Evil in the Short Fiction of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol and Nathaniel Hawthorne”, Papers on Language & Literature, 38, 1, P. 76. 7. Walker, C. (2004). “The Effects of Brown: Personal and Historical Reflections on American Racial Atavism”, Journal of Southern History, 70, 2. 8. Xanders, X. “The Lottery and Shirley Jackson”. Planet Papers. Retrieved July 30, 2009 from the World Wide Web: http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/5000.php Read More