Symbolism!

Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Honorius, Nov 7, 2010.

  1. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    I would be surprised if the symbolism of Scots Quair and Narnia hadn't been thought out prior to the writing of the books. They are very much part of the story and not symbols for symbols sake.

    I have read books where the symbolism tries to hard can't remember them off the top of my head but then they are not books I would read 5 or 6 times.
     
  2. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    Writers use all sorts of devices and tecnniques in their writing. Symbolism is one of them. But using symbolism for its own sake is as ineffective as using metaphor for its own sake.

    Begging the forum's pardon for stating the painfully obvious.
     
  3. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    LOL Having said all that I have just written a piece with loads of symbols. They are intentional and I want the reader to get them or it messes up the story.
     
  4. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    You've all misunderstood me.

    I agree that concious usage of symbols can help to create a well rounded story.

    I'm saying it's highly unlikely (but not impossible) that a good writer will engineer a complete, satisfying, plot-centric story entirely around a set of random symbols as some form of exercise but that symbols evolve naturally from storylines that are thematically related, or that storylines, or characters will be suggested by an image.

    In the case of Lolita - i don't know when Nabokov named his character. But i speculate that the storyline didn't arise from, or was built entirely to accomodate the name "Dolores Haze".

    This doesn't preclude artists like Joyce who deliberately inserted symbolic references to religious and classical literature as part of the process.
     
  5. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    My guess is (and this is sheer speculation) that he developed the idea for the story, knew what he wanted to write about and how he wanted to approach it, and then consciously settled on the name in part for its symbolic properties.
     
  6. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    Then we are in agreement, sir ;)
     
  7. Cecil

    Cecil New Member

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    Here, I'm drawing a distinction between good story telling and a good story. Lot's of very popular stories are utter crap for a wide variety of reasons (thin characters, contrived plots, etc.). But I think a truly good story should be both deep and truly enjoyable or "fun". Popular stories are often (not 100% of the time I suppose) well told and many writers who excel at depth and symbolism could learn a thing or two from some best sellers about pacing your story so it's actually interesting.

    Said another way, a story can be good but a true trial for the reader (requiring re-reads, research, and exceptional focus to truly appreciate), and a story can be a "quick read" that pulls you in from beginning to end and is essentially "junk food" or "Mcdonalds". But the best stories will have the best of both worlds. They will be both fun and meaningful from the very first read, but will reward re-reading and further education on the subject with alternate interpretations, and added layers of depth.
    To be honest, I think that first "fun and meaningful" read is actually the most important. If you can't capture that, then all the "extra" depth that requires so much more work is wasted because nobody (or relatively few people) will read the work in the first place.

    Additionally, I don't think "staying power" is a much better indicator of story or story telling quality than popularity is. At best, a story that people continue to talk about for years proves that it is indeed good. At worst, it only proves that the author made it complicated enough that people will keep reading into it and will feel good about themselves for "finally figuring it out". In this case, the story has become a puzzle game. If it's a good story on it's own and a puzzle game, that's fine, however unnecessary.

    This captures what I'm trying to say in simple terms. If a plain story told plainly is also told well, then the symbolism can often take care of itself. It is handled automatically by both the writer and the reader on a subconscious level. Anything capturing the human experience will have untold depth because we are deep and complicated.

    I think it's fine to say "the name Daisy evokes a certain mental image and feeling which suits my purposes, I'll go with that." And it's also fine to say "I'm gonna write a Christian allegory in a fantasy setting in which Jesus is represented by a lion." But you're pushing it when you say that the color in the middle of a daisy represents evil things and proves Daisy's character, especially since yellow also represents sun,warmth, light, and happiness. Symbols at that depth are arbitrary and will be seen differently by different people, which is why good symbols occur organically so that they work for the individual reader. Putting them in yourself is just asking for them to be taken the wrong way.

    Colors are probably the worst for this. Red can mean love, hate, anger, passion, pain, etc.

    To elaborate the fine dining example, the difference between a dollar burger at a fast food place and a fancy fish thing at a "high end" restaurant is obvious, but so is the price difference. The higher up the "quality ladder" you go, the actual difference in quality becomes smaller while the price difference just grows and grows. I'm sure you can get steaks at well over $100 in some places, but a Fifteen dollar steak meal at Outback is almost just as good. This is where fine dining and literature can both get pointlessly pretentious. Rich people eat at rich restaurants to be around other rich people and prove that they have money to burn. Overly deep yet uninteresting novels are a place for scholars to hang out and prove that they have the knowledge and capability to wring every last drop of meaning from something that is only slightly more meaningful (if at all) then Harry Potter. It's valuable because it's hard.
    A story with lots of complicated layers, (to be truly great) should also have at least one that's reasonably accessible and at least somewhat pleasant. I'll take junk food over $100 steak any day.
     
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  8. Honorius

    Honorius Active Member

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    Cecil, I thought you finally understood! And then you started with this:

    "But you're pushing it when you say that the color in the middle of a daisy represents evil things and proves Daisy's character, especially since yellow also represents sun,warmth, light, and happiness. Symbols at that depth are arbitrary and will be seen differently by different people, which is why good symbols occur organically so that they work for the individual reader. Putting them in yourself is just asking for them to be taken the wrong way.

    Colors are probably the worst for this. Red can mean love, hate, anger, passion, pain, etc."

    Surely some symbols are arbitrary, but at least in Daisy's case, it really was purposeful. Fitzgerald really did do that on purpose. Even with Gatsby. Gatz was Gatsby's original last name, he changed his name when he left home. Gats is an old slang term from that era referring to guns. Which is how Gatsby dies. You may see it as coincidental, but Fitzgerald really honestly did it on purpose.

    As for colors, I think the exact reason you said they were bad is what makes them good. Colors can mean so many things, giving them so many meanings, making them so colorful. Colors have so many meaning, but the meanings often go hand in hand. Greens remind us of plants, fertility, but also of money, greed and envy. So something green pops up. Is it fertile? or Envious? It could be one, or both, or too ambiguous to be either. Each of those would be determined by context and have its own meaning. They can also have their own meaning for different people. That's one of the things that can make novels great, they hold truths, and each person finds that a novel may hold a different truth. My class read Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, I felt the biggest theme was isolation and misuse of a person. Others felt differently, that it was more about Kafka's life or the vampiric (Literary Vamps, not Dracula or Twilight) aspect of the family. We found different meanings affected us differently, but we could all agree that those themes were in fact there.

    As for the steak analogy, I've been to outback, and I've been to Fogo de chao. One is a regular steakhouse we've all been to, the other is quite expensive, full of high class people, everyone is dressed up, there are vallets, waiters bring food to you at your whim, get your jacket and pull out your chair. But let me tell you this, Outback is delicious, but it is nothing compared to the level of food.

    As for some novels being "Overly deep yet uninteresting", I have to agree with you on some level. When I first read Gatsby, Scarlet Letter, Old Man in the Sea, I hated them. Hideous stories, confusing language. But looking back, now that I've been through some AP Lit classes, I realize just how awesome those books were. Why did I like Monte Cristo? It had an awesome story. But why do I now love Metamorphosis? It's story is pretty dull in comparison. Guy turns into bug (for no apparent reason at all mind you) and family hates him (think I said this before). But it was the language and symbols that made the novel wonderful. On the other hand, I recently read The Prime of Ms. Jean Brodie. That was a horrendous novel. The plot was boring, and the symbols were so deep and convoluted that even my Lit teacher doesn't really get it. But then again, its status as a "Work of Literary Merit" is being challenged. Scholars agree with me and my class.

    Books full of symbols aren't just overly fancy for the sake of being overly fancy. Although, they may seem to be. A ten year old can't tell the difference between a steak from outback, the grocery store, and fogo de chao very well. One might taste a little better, but most likely he can;t really tell you why. Meanwhile, a grown adult who has been eating all kinds of stake for many years can tell you which is better an has an idea why, and a great chef can tell you exactly what cooking methods, seasonings, types of meat were used to make the fogo de chao better. It may seem that Harry Potter is almost as good as Dorian Gray or the Great Gatsby, but I believe you just haven't quite fully developed your literary taste buds quite yet.
     
  9. Cecil

    Cecil New Member

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    Actually, I don't think either of us really understands the other. I may have been overly harsh in my earlier posts in response to what I perceive as an over-emphasis on "deep symbolism" in the literary community. So I may have shot a little too far in the opposite direction to make my point.

    That said, I stand by my belief that as useful as symbolism can be, there are other aspects of storytelling that are far more important.

    See, these stories may be wonderful when properly understood, but I think that they fail in at least some small way because they couldn't interest you the first time.
    I really don't mean to say that these deep classic works are bad, I'm just expressing a hypothetical ideal. The best book is accessible and interesting enough to touch everyone who picks it up.

    I'm not doubting that he did it on purpose, I'm questioning whether or not it was a good idea or a worthwhile use of his time and energy.

    I doubt we'll see eye to eye on this, but that is exactly what makes colors useless. A symbol that can mean virtually anything ceases to be functional as a symbol. It's like if I took one symbol that could represent any letter in the alphabet, and then wrote my whole post with that one symbol over and over and blamed you for not interpreting it properly.

    A prominent exception is when the author uses consistent context. If I write a story, and I consistently use red to represent love, and blue to represent evil, or use another symbol to represent whatever else, then the reader can get a feel for what they mean in this story. The difference is that the reader doesn't have to step outside of the story to properly appreciate it. However, the arbitrary nature of colors (and many symbols) is prominent here, as I used red for love in the example, but many a story uses red for evil. White can be purity or emptiness. It depends on the individual story because any "official" meaning for a certain color will inevitably fail to apply to everyone at all times.

    If the symbol can be properly interpreted within the story alone, then it's fine and can be used to make additional statements. For example, if I use red for love and for evil, I may be saying something negative about love or a particular relationship. It's all very fine and dandy. However, it should either be fairly obvious if it is absolutely essential to appreciate the story, or it should be non-essential and can be safely relegated to an additional level of depth reserved for re-readers and the particularly careful. In fact, as long as it's not essential to appreciating the plot in it's basic level, I don't care if it requires an advanced understanding of ancient Chinese mythology. It's not hurting anything by adding an extra layer of optional depth (though again, it may be a waste of the authors time if he devotes hours of research for a "bonus level" that three people will get).

    When a book requires two or more readings before it means anything, my response is "I guess the author didn't want me to read this," and it feels like the goal is just to be mysterious and create the illusion of depth. There's sometimes no other reason that the author didn't just tell the story the first time.

    I think a great deal of fans of the "great classics" (and English teachers) suffer from a lack of appreciation for the modern and easy stuff. If you treat modern best selling fiction like it's just junkfood literature, then that's all you'll get out of it. Some people seem to (tragically) lose the ability to appreciate anything that they don't have to dig endlessly for, until they can't see what's right in front of their faces. I'm not referring to anybody here (I don't know any of you well enough to even attempt to make that kind of judgement), but those are the people I worry about, and those are the people who would take the real experience away from a good book, turn it into a puzzle, and then publish puzzles of their own, forgetting that they originally set out to actually tell a story.

    I've heard of studies in which people were put in a fancy restaurant environment, charged high prices, and given food they were told was "fancy" when it was actually just slightly modified cheap food (and modified inexpensively I might add). Needles to say, they were blown away by how "amazing" it was. Sometimes these differences in quality are all in your head. At best it's a subconscious attempt to justify how much money you spent, at worst it's a form of internal snobbery. In literary terms, one might unconsciously justify the quality of the work because of how much time and effort went into it or into understanding it, or even (completely unconsciously) insist that it's good in order to feel superior to people who don't get it.

    To long, did not read: Symbolism=good when used properly. Telling the darn story=way better and a much higher priority. That, and deliberate symbolism is pretty much optional (except for a couple of major ones per story maybe, such as the Aslan=Jesus example), since it usually happens naturally and organically anyway (often to better effect than if you did it on purpose).
     
  10. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    Cecil more than anything you're saying "i don't like reading more into stories". That's your opinion, but clearly there are those that do.

    I feel this may be because of your age - you may find that as you grow older you will appreciate good use of symbolism more.

    It depends on how impenetrable the text is. You're talking about symbols you have trouble understanding. To another person they may understand the symbols automatically and it will aid them in interpreting the text.

    You are not the only audience.

    Colours can be culturally loaded - it depends on your exposure to the culture.

    See now you're contradicting yourself. You've demonstrated (in your opinion) a good concious use of symbolism

    If you need to learn a language to read a story then you are not it's intended audience. This doesn't preclude those people who DO want to learn that langauge though.

    Just because you don't understand the symbolism used on first glance doesn't mean that others won't. Maybe you need to broaden your experience.

    (note I'm using Bolded you as a symbol to mean "you the reader" as opposed to "you, cecil")

    don't be daft. The author uses symbols as a language to telescope meaning or highlight things to pay attention to. It's up to you to either learn the language or reject it.

    The chances are all the books you've read that you've enjoyed you have done so because the level of symbolism is equivalent to your understanding.

    People who appreciate the classics do so because they communicate something profound about the human experience. Often those profound subjects can only be communicated symbolically as we don't have accurate language to express these ideas.

    It's no coincidence that religions are loaded with symbols because metaphysics is their playground.

    I'm sure this may be true in some circumstances. But that study doesn't preclude on how well it was cooked or how it tasted.

    I like the taste of mcdonalds but i know it's bad for me - high cholesterol, high in fat (that fat, whilst cheap, is what makes it taste good).

    However a well cooked steak can be sublime.

    Good use of symbolism is not to create puzzles (although it can be if that's the authors intent).

    let's make the comparison in terms of films.

    I enjoyed the story and jumps of something like Nightmare on Elm Street - the gore may repulse me, but no pulp horror movie has the power to chill me, or leave me unsettled after watching, like "Anti-christ" by lars von trier. The image (symbol) of a self-disembowelling fox has resonant power that lasts long after the film.

    Anti-christ is a good film symbollically - the way symbolism is used is incredibly unnerving - and in a way that it's not quite possible to define. I may not understand the specific reference of the fox but it touches me in a visceral way that straight prose does not.

    When the man and the woman make love under a tree and the hands rise from the ground - i do not understand it (i do not have to) but there is something eerily beautiful and scary about it. It affects me emotionally.

    THAT is the power of good symbolism. It affects you without you being aware of it or having to deconstruct it intellectually.

    What your teacher is saying is "learn to pay attention to symbolism" and is showing you how to deconstruct it. It will make you a more powerful writer.
     
  11. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    Does anyone understand (without being told) that yellow symbolises evil in the context of Daisy in The Great Gatsby?

    But if it affects you directly, without understanding what (if anything) it refers to, isn't it more properly dubbed "imagery" instead of "symbolism"?

    Or do you count all imagery which carries some sort of meaning to the reader as a form of symbolism? For example, if someone arrives at a house on a dark and stormy night, would you call the dark and stormy night a symbol for the sinister events that will take place there?

    Or if the writer creates a sense of exasparation by having the main character suffer multiple failures on her way to a meeting (her car breaks down, her credit card isn't accepted, she steps in a puddle, etc), are the individual failures symbols of exasperation?

    Can all literary devices which evoka a response in the reader be called "symbols"? After all, the entire novel is nothing more than alphabetic and typographic symbols strung in a row.
     
  12. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    Well there's a degree of crossover here. Symbolism incorporates Visual imagery but as has been discussed can refer to symbols outside the realm of the visual - a musical motif, a name, a situation, a combination of the above.

    Symbols are a form of encoding - as i said earlier a compression of meaning - information substitutes.

    There's two layers of understanding (from a readers point of view) in this context - Concious - ie deliberate attempt to understand the symbols which requires effort (either through investigating or simply because the reader has experience) and the subconcious (the visceral). Sometimes you "just get it" othertimes you have to "think about it".

    Powerful symbols often act on the latter. But the use of either is down to the intent of the author.

    Good writing can survive a textual analysis as well as be "a good read".
     
  13. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    Depending on where you draw the line, that could mean I use symbols in my writing all the time. For example, a character lives in a run-down apartment building - that symbolises their socio-economic status, so I don't have to spell it out for the reader.

    That level of basic symbolism, I think, is just good storytelling.
     
  14. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    Anything which compresses meaning, or which substitutes a combination of information into one package is a symbol, or which represents or suggests something is a symbol. It has a pretty wide reach.

    For example take the name Mr Trick.

    The name implies things about his character - so by simply using a name we might have an idea of what he looks like, what his character may be like, we may even have a colour.

    (for example for me, it implies the colour red, a goatee, a bowler hat, the smell of sulphur - even this combination of descriptors suggests something in itself.....)

    The great thing about a name like "Mr. Trick" is that you don't have to be specific about these details.
     
  15. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    Exactly and further levels of symbolism will similarly telescope other levels of information....
     
  16. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

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    But all stories do that.

    "It was a bright, warm day."

    "It was dark and cold."

    Even the simplest sentences like these conjure up all sorts of symbolic associations.

    Light, darkness, the color red, heavy rain, long blonde hair, etc... You may not even be conscious about it as a writer, but it all means something. At the least you felt a need to stick it in.

    "Her knees faced inwards."

    "His hair looked painted on."

    Even in the shortest character description, it's there. Most writers don't provide a full anatomical diagram of this person's composition, but chooses something to focus on, and that instantly becomes symbolic. It wasn't put in by a random word generator so it meant something when it was picked by the writer.
     
  17. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    True. In that context, I was thinking of when the writer manages to convey more advanced symbolism into the story in a natural way.

    For me, that occured with the movie The Matrix. The matrix is, among other things, an allegory for the establishment: how the entities in power keep control over people by feeding them a false version of reality. In that context, it makes perfect sense to use symbols for the establishment:
    • When Neo is still in the matrix, he is caught up in a dreary 9-to-5 job in a small cubicle with washed-out colours
    • The enemy agents, whose task it is to keep people in the matrix, wear identical costumes and are anonymous and mostly expressionless. They're similar to FBI agents or other government officials.
    • The enemy agents repeatedly talk about rules and order.
    At the same time, The Matrix contains spiritual allegories. Neo is a spiritual leader who has come to free his people, and the matrix itself is an allegory for the veil that stands between us and the real, spiritual world, and in that context, it makes perfect sense to use religious symbols:
    • Someone ironically refers to Neo as Jesus Christ
    • He is called The Chosen One
    • An oracle has foreseen his coming
    • The base of the resistance is called Zion
    • The child who bends spoons in the Oracle's home is reminiscent of a young buddhist monk
    • Paradoxical statements like "There is no spoon" or "Do you really think it's air you're breathing?" are reminiscent of Zen Buddhist koans.
    ...and so on.

    And the thing is, most of the symbols made sense to me after viewing the movie once, because they were in line with the allegory and made sense in the movie's own context. That's why I think the symbolism in The Matrix was successful.

    In contrast, I don't think the likening of flower petals to the peoples of the world makes sense in the context of Brave New World, at least not that I can see. I haven't read The Great Gatsby, but from how it's described, it sounds like you need to go outside the context of the novel to understand the significance of Daisy's name.

    If a symbol can't be understood without consulting a textbook or asking the author, I would go so far as to say that the author has failed at his task: communicating with the reader.
     
  18. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

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    Agree about Brave New World. To me it was just a colorful way of describing an object (could be wrong, of course).

    Huxley was very straight forward about his messages in Brave New World, like with the conversations about Shakespeare and the Bible at one point in the story. The characters' feelings and stances towards various values were always very clear in the narrative.

    Another thing I've been thinking about is instances where symbols are necessary. Cases where you just can't say things out loud, lay down the facts plainly, without it coming off as horribly cheesy or unacceptable.

    One example that comes to my mind is in the movie Return of the Jedi, where Luke Skywalker looks at his gloved, mechanical hand and then at his father's severed, mechanical hand. There's absolutely no doubt what this scene is saying, but it would be very hard to make it work without symbolism. Had Luke exclaimed "Oh no, I could become like my father!" it would likely have been the cheesiest scene in movie history.

    Telling it (or showing it), without ever saying it, puts the viewer in Luke's place, making the realization for themselves...and perhaps even associate it with their own relationship to their parents. In that little moment they become the main character, making the realization along with him.
     
  19. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

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    How do you gauge the knowledge of a reader? You can't assume you readership has no educational level beyond, say, a 7 year old as otherwise most books would be awful.

    If someone needs to consult a text book then is that the fault of the reader or the writer?

    Similarly one of the goals of literature is to educate. You can't learn unless you encounter things you don't know.

    Books are many faceted things - some you read for entertainment, some for enlightenment.
     
  20. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Yes, that is always something I've found a bit strange when I read reviews of a book, and the reviewer is complaining that he had to reach for a dictionary, textbook, or whatever. I doesn't make sense to simply assume the text is at fault. The fault could very well rest with the reader. And to be honest, I wouldn't really call it a "fault" in either case - different people draw on different experiences, different pools of knowledge, etc.

    I had a girlfriend who was a professor of Literature who would routinely find symbolism and meaning that I missed. But that was her thing. She could also do NY Times Sunday crossword puzzles all the way through in a single sitting, and I can't.

    I suppose I could take the position that the fact that I missed (or didn't immediately understand) some of the symbolism is somehow a fault of the author, but I don't see it that way. And if I have to reach for a dictionary now and again when reading, then so much the better - I like learning new words :)
     
  21. Honorius

    Honorius Active Member

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    "In contrast, I don't think the likening of flower petals to the peoples of the world makes sense in the context of Brave New World, at least not that I can see."

    With Brave New World, I didn't have to consult a teacher book or anything to pick up the connection of flowers with different races. I quickly was able to associate those flowers with different races, which I recognized as culture. And I feel I was correct in that connection. Later, Mustapha Mond, who is sorta like a president/prophet for lack of a better description, explains that originally, the government couldn't force people to go consume (economically) and work.

    "Every man, woman and child compelled to consume so much a year. In the interests of industry. The sole result"..."Conscientious objection on an enormous scale. Anything not to consume. Back to nature."..."Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture."

    And Islander,

    "Does anyone understand (without being told) that yellow symbolises evil in the context of Daisy in The Great Gatsby?"

    I didn't originally in The Great Gatsby, but, I did catch onto yellow as evil in the context of Dorian Gray, and scarlet, twilight, and rubies as evil (Or at least really messed up and creepy) in Brave New World.

    I've found that having read more as the years go by, and having learned more of symbolism and other literary techniques, I have gotten better at understanding the symbols a author makes. Although, I'm sure some symbols are made up by the readers (Although that gives them no less power), I think many aren't. For instance, in Brave New World (I mention it a lot because I'm currently reading it.) the solidarity sessions hold 12 people. It took place in room 3210, on floor 33, the character was the third to last to arrive, and they meet at 9:00. Now, it could all be totally coincidental that there are so many 3's multiples of 3, and so on in one place. But I'm inclined to believe otherwise. But as of yet, I haven't found any symbolism in 3. It just seems to occur a lot in that page or two. But that doesn't mean that I won't understand the symbol latter, maybe I'll catch onto a detail that I skimmed over earlier. It happens to my AP Lit teacher every year.

    Wow... Didn't mean to write that much........

    Anyway, I think we're just about at an understanding.
     
  22. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    If you read book X, and you need to consult a textbook which has a section specifically on X to understand it, I'd say the writer has failed to reach you.

    If you need to consult a dictionary, or read up on Greek mythology, or acquire some other kind of general knowledge, it's more understandable. But I think using as simple means as possible to reach the desired effect is one of the signs of artistic skill. If the writer can convey the same meaning in an alternate way, or include the information in the text itself, I think it's better.
     
  23. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    I reread the chapter to refresh my memory, and I think the connection is incredibly far-fetched. Differences in biological race are parallels to differences in culture (in the sense of ethnicity), and consuming culture (in the sense of art and literature) is mentioned twice in the succeeding chapter, but only as a small part of the purpose of the conditioning. Even if I found out Huxley actually intended the flower petals to symbolise culture, I'd still say it doesn't make sense. Why go to that effort and give the description of the flower petals such a prominent place in the story to signify such a small detail? Huxley's purpose in writing the novel was to show what he believed were the long-term consequences of the then-current trends in society, and chapter two is about the conditioning process as a means to a planned society. Why not insert symbols for society, or control, or order, or something else the chapter is actually about, instead?

    The hunt for symbols often seems to throw away all sense of context and relative importance. Small parts of the text are pulled out and related to other parts without regard to their respective places in the whole.
     
  24. Cecil

    Cecil New Member

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    This is pretty much what I'm trying to say. An author should be as clear as possible given their circumstances (age range and cultural background of target audience is among those circumstances). Maybe a story requires a basic knowledge of Greek mythology to appreciate, and maybe there's just no way to put that knowledge in the story itself, but the target audience can be reasonably expected to know the subject or do the research. On the other hand, if the book can teach you what you need to know within itself, and still work, then I think that's better.

    I would still say that deliberate symbolism is often unnecessary and only worth it if it doesn't take very long to implement. Things can get plenty deep on their own just from little unconscious ideas you and the reader throw in naturally.

    As for colors, there is some cultural input, but I think it can be easily turned on it's head when used with consistent context. Some kind of story about a good vampire (maybe he has a soul or something) who wears a lot of black (because bright colors hurt his eyes), and he's fighting against some kind of evil god or something who's associated with light...
    Barring language barriers, anyone from any culture should be able to understand the book. The classic light/white=good dark/black=evil is particularly fragile, and I'd say the same can be said for any other color association and many other symbols. Some cultures may have a harder time with some symbols, but at most that should effect the popularity of that story within that culture. But anyone who reads it should be able to easily say "I see, in this world, [color X] means something different than what I usually associate it with".

    Cmcpress, you can say what you want about my age effecting my literary preferences, but if you are claiming that my preferences are in any way inferior (not saying that you are), then I can easily turn the same argument around and neither of us can provide any actual evidence. Plenty of people suffer from an older=better bias and I think it's at least as bad as the also common newer=better bias. People get set in their ways, and have hard time adjusting to the "popular style of the day". Some English teachers won't give anything written in the last 50 years the time of day. Some people feel that if anybody can understand it, it must not be any good, and that's snobbery. A story can be symbolic and complex and be fine, but I don't think any story can be too straightforward. A book can theoretically be targeted towards educated adults and be understandable by a six year old, and still be good.

    I'm not going to bother with quotes here, but I'm well aware that I'm not the only audience. I said a while ago that we were getting into opinion territory. Even the most heavily concealed symbol infested puzzle of a book has an audience, and if that's your thing, go for it. I'm only stating my opinion of the "ideal" book/writing philosophy and defending it as a valid opinion.
     
  25. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

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    Honestly, I think people turn to sophistication because the simple and powerful is so bloody hard to pull off. The most straight forward and natural stories that appeal to every human being have already been done a gazillion times, and so you're forced to come up with new ways of being simple and natural, and that's the hardest challenge of all. I think Pixar did it with their movie "UP", to name one example, but few can really pull this off.

    I think that's why some resort to sophistication, decadence and literary snobbery.
     

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