Symbolism!

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

  1. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2010
    Messages:
    146
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    London, England
    Whether you intend them or not - if there are symbols in your work then they could be manifestations of your unconcious.

    There is a great South Park episode featuring Mr Garrison writing his first "erotic novel" - and some of the language he uses betrays his repressed sexuality.
     
  2. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    Mine or the readers?

    My falcon is not a symbol of gay porn - it's soaring happens because it is a bird and it flies. However my gay couple do live in a cottage, near an inlet where the one that works for the secret service likes to park his boat. I chose it because I had seen a house in a place like that and it suited them not because they were a gay couple. Nate works for the secret service because he is a spy the job suits him. One of them owns a black stallion - why because the white, chocolate, and chestnut horses were already taken by other characters - I needed a black one it was the only one left. Oh and my gay character is called Soc, because it was short for Socrates and easier to type.

    My falcon is a falcon because the Sorcoress in He Man was my favourite cartoon character.
     
  3. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2010
    Messages:
    146
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    London, England
    Yours (and the readers i guess) if it's consistent with the text and the readers if it's not.

    Not all unconcious things are to do with sexuality.

    That may well have been your influence - i doubt unless there's anything specifically connected to He Man that anyone could draw that inference though.

    Maybe, just maybe that falcon image stuck with you because of it's relevance within He-Man - i don't know. Not everything has to have symbolic significance - which is why sometimes the cat sat on the mat is simply a cat sat on a mat.
     
  4. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    It was an example of the symbols other people have picked out from my work I didn't put them in but they got them out lol - fact is most literature classes I have sat in do spend a disproportionate amount of time on sexuality.



    I picked the image deliberatly - the cat has just sat firmly on the mat for all 60,000 words of that story - however readers have come up with a variety of symbols and depths to it. Which is their right to do so.

    However they are seeing things that I did not put in - they are using the corners of their eyes to see fairies in my work. And that is absolutely fine - I would be flattered if in 200 years time people are discussing my repressed sexuality as respresented in the book or whatever else lol However for me a greater compliment is those that sit down and read, fall in love with the story and it's characters - thinking my goodness I enjoyed that it was fun etc.

    Another has been the alarm clock at the beginning of my NaNo have had some fun responses to that - fact is Socrates threw the alarm clock because it was the nearest thing he could get his hands on. Would hurt more than his pillow but not do any serious damage like the lamp would. However it is seen by one or two of my friends as a symbol because it is a time travel novel lol
     
  5. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2010
    Messages:
    146
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    London, England
    Ha. That may have been the power of your subconcious at work there. Why did he have to throw anything at all? Why not a thick book or a glass of water? These are only questions your subconcious can answer.

    Looking back on a story that i've recently written there's all kinds of symbolism in there that just happened - things that just plopped out from my subconcious - nothing intended - little things like the wordplay of a guy with rotten teeth who never wanted them fixed because he didn't want a fake smile (which is reflective of how he feels about his position in society etc..) - entirely unplanned, it just appeared.

    I think those things reflect subconcious thought processes that just manifest themselves throughout your language - often without you being aware of it.
     
  6. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    我也不是中国人。
    (And I think "guó" is the only character there that's not the same in traditional Chinese. But I fear we may be leaving too many readers behind here :)

    It's interesting looking at the symbolism of another language, though. I wonder to what extent the Chinese even /notice/ the gender roles implied in the character for "good" being the character for woman + the character for child (女+子=好) or that "she" is implicitly gendered (woman + also: 她) whereas "he" isn't (person + also: 他). We have similar issues in English, of course, but studying another language can help us to become conscious of them.
     
  7. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2008
    Messages:
    1,539
    Likes Received:
    59
    Location:
    Sweden
    This assumes the author intended the colour red to symbolise anything at all. There may be a reason within the fictional world for Mr. Trick to wear red - for example, as a character quirk, or for reasons related to the character's culture. Or the decision to let him wear red may have been a whim on the author's side.

    Once you add the pentagram necklace, I think it becomes pretty clear what Mr. Trick symbolises. A pentagram is a much more specific symbol than a colour. But that doesn't mean the colour red has a symbolic meaning in itself - it is the combination red + pentagram + mischevious/demonic behaviour which symbolises something. Another character in the same story may wear red or handle red objects without it being related to Mr. Trick's preference for red.
     
  8. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2010
    Messages:
    5,319
    Likes Received:
    97
    The book is sacred as it is scripture (he is the head of all religion in the universe - Universal Father would be annoyed with him not worth the risk lol) and glass of water would make messSocrates would vomit at that lol Also the morning the book starts someone needs to catch it - so of all the items on the bedside table it is the easiest one to catch. His alarm clock is also a better size less unwieldy.

    The throwing is a reflex action done in his sleep - his partner has been dead for five years but they were together for one hundred. His partner was part sparrow and every morning at 4.45am would rise to his own version of the dawn chorus - Nate had little rhythm and was out of tune, but would sing loudly for at least an hour turning cartwheels round the bed in his shorts. Every morning Socrates threw something at him (hence the lamp doing too much damage but the pillow not enough). Socrates most morning still throws something usually his alarm clock.
     
  9. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2010
    Messages:
    146
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    London, England
    Well i copied the characters from a website - no Pinyin to chinese at work - i couldn't find the simplified version of Guo which is fairly similar ("king" in a square - heh).

    That reminds me of 安 - "an" - the woman under a roof meaning safe, or zi (as in 名字) - a child under a roof meaning "word".

    It's totally fascinating and you can gain a complete insight into the Chinese mindset through studying the script / language. I don't know if they stop to think about it anymore than we do - but in some ways the connections are more obvious.

    Even, little things like saying "hello everyone" -

    Da Jia Hao! - Big Family Hello!
     
  10. cmcpress

    cmcpress New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2010
    Messages:
    146
    Likes Received:
    3
    Location:
    London, England

    Sure - this is where the voice of the author steps in because he/she brings attention to the character wearing red simply by choosing to include it in the narrative - it's not nesc. to draw attention to the colour of someone's clothes in every scene unless they have significance.
     
  11. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    Why should it be the author's interpretation that is preferred? Surely the reader will legitimately prefer the interpretation that is most valuable to them?
    That's a common mistake. The fact that a text isn't restricted to /one/ meaning doesn't mean it's open to /any/ meaning; the meaning has to be justifiable. But if the text is set in a poor, peasant background then it's legitimate to note that the car indicates ("symbolises"?) wealth and power even if the author hadn't consciously registered that and just saw it as a way of getting the man to the scene at the drive-through.
    Clearly if a symbol doesn't fit subsequent events then one has to revise one's interpretation of it. But if it does fit subsequent events that doesn't necessarily mean that the author intended it. On emerging from the red room (the womb?) Jane Eyre is tended by Bessie, which casts Bessie in the role of a surrogate mother. Did Charlotte Brontë intend that interpretation, or was the red of the red room simply chosen for it's dramatic impact and did Bessie comfort Jane because the story needed her to be comforted and that was in keeping with Bessie's character? We have no way of knowing (Barthes "death of the author" is literally as well as figuratively true in this case) and so both interpretations are legitimate. But even if Charlotte Brontë were still alive and said she hadn't thought of wombs or mothers, the symbolic interpretation is still valid because it is available in the text.
    I think it's more nuanced. It's a delicate balance for the author how much to lead the readers by the nose and tell them what to think, and how much to let them make their own interpretations. Lead them too much and the writing will be dreary (this is actually characteristic of a "telling" rather than a "showing" style, and if there's a "message" too the results can be disasterously preachy). Don't lead them enough, though, and they won't even be able to make out that there's a story there. Generally, lightweight, "pulp" fiction, along with some genres (notably action-adventure) lean towards leading the readers by the nose. Generally more "literary" fiction leads the readers a lot less. But I don't mean by those labels to make out that one style is superior to the other: a good, engaging, lightweight romp is every bit as hard to get right as profound literary fiction, it simply suits a different mood.
    The work builds through the accretion of – understood - descriptions of place and person, metaphors, insights, symbols. And the reader recognizes that he will be lead and that by being lead he will (hopefully) encounter truths and beauties that might otherwise have remained unknown to him.
    If the reader can't follow the author then I agree that the result is catastrophic (unless that's what the author intended -- Finnegan's Wake?) But for the rest, it's not whether one trusts the author, it's finding what's actually in the text, whether the author intended it to be or not.
     
  12. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    I used the simplified form, because I don't have the traditional font installed. It's actually the symbol for jade inside the box, but the box doesn't seem to have any independent meaning. Why drawing a box around "jade" should mean "country" I have no idea!
     
  13. art

    art Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2010
    Messages:
    1,153
    Likes Received:
    117
    I do see this. An interpretation is valid insofar as it's not subverted by further reading. And there are symbols which are unintended but which might be validly interpreted. I'm treading a fine line, I know. And it might be fairly said that a finished work represents not a peremptory monologue but the opening of a dialogue and so on. I don't quite know what I'm attacking - I'm likely making the mistake that so many make when attacking political correctness; I'm perhaps attacking a fabrication, a common delusion. But I have glanced at some modern pieces of literary theory...

    While reading is a dialogue, it shouldn't be, for the reader, an exercise in masturbation. Entirely possible to construct interpretations which are nowhere contradicted and which say nothing about the author but which say a lot about the reader. And there's something feckless about that approach: the reader is dealing not with the author but with who he wishes the author to be.
     
  14. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    More negative, actually. It's a place in which she is trapped and isolated, from which she wants to emerge. And it's a place in which she thinks she sees the ghost of her dead father. The exit from the room has possible echoes of birth: "The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy." Following that we get the first instance in the book of anybody acting maternally towards her. None of it is conclusive, which is why I say that it's a legitimate interpretation but isn't a necessary one.
     
  15. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2010
    Messages:
    2,490
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    Orpington, Bromley, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
    Well, that's a very -- er -- specific type of text!
    No, the reader is not dealing with the author or who he wishes the author to be. The reader is dealing with the text, which is all the reader has and should be all that the reader needs other than a general knowledge of the world. If I need to know the author to make sense of the text, the text has failed.
     
  16. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 29, 2008
    Messages:
    1,539
    Likes Received:
    59
    Location:
    Sweden
    I realise I've been unclear on something. I don't mean that the symbolism isn't there - I think it often is, especially in modern litterature, and that the author even intended it in many cases.

    I mean that when a certain way of writing (using advanced symbolism) becomes popular among literary critics, academics, journalists, and so on, young authors may come to write that way to gain status and recognition, or because they come to believe that's how good literature should be written. This generates more literature full of advanced symbolism targeted at critics and academics, which they in turn need to learn to interpret to gain status among each other. So it could, in theory at least, be pretentious, even though the symbolism is really there.

    But obviously many people enjoy looking for symbolism in a text for its own sake, too, or it wouldn't have become popular in the first place.

    My interpretation is that they need to get laid more :p

    Oh, foreshadowing! :p

    What if you need a class in literary criticism to make sense of it? :p

    And the reason the author is drawing attention to it could be something as mundane as characterisation - for example, showing that the character is attention-seeking, obnoxious and lacks fashion sense. Or a reason that is specific to the fictional world the author has created - for example, that the colour stands for occupation, social class or political or religious affiliation.
     
  17. art

    art Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2010
    Messages:
    1,153
    Likes Received:
    117
    Okay, to avoid confusion, the reader is not dealing with the author's text (as it is) but is very deliberately imposing his own fanices beyond the bounds of reasonableness (is dealing with the text as he wishes it to be). Tis a cheap trick and it perhaps represents an extreme activity, but it is pernicious and (though it might seem laughably genteel to say) disrepectful. It is the work of wonky character more than perhaps wonky intellect.

    I think what I'm saying is that the scope for valid interpretation is less broad than might be imagined if the interpreter is animated by reasonableness.

    Define reasonableness etc etc etc. Yes, I know. An opinion.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice