Searching for Symbolism

Part of understanding an the inner workings of an art form is identify it in two ways: what you see, and what you don't see. What you see, everyone else can see. It is elementary, and evident to anyone with eyes, no matter how reflective or introspective their minds are. It is available to everyone. The more exclusive inner working is what isn't on the surface. Suppose you're looking at a painting. The colors and shadings on the canvas could make the painting seem sorrowful, not to mention the mournful looking man painted into the picture. Already, we see something that guides us to select a more melancholy emotion. But what else is there? What are we not seeing? Perhaps there are more details in the picture that can tell us something more about this painting and why it appears to be so sad. Maybe there is a framed picture of a woman that has been painted into this composition. Perhaps this could imply that the man is mourning his wife. Perhaps she has passed, perhaps she has left, but who is to say which is right? The artist? What if he doesn't know? The fact here is, we have already found two staunchly different and yet similar examples of an ageless literary device: symbolism.

The dark shades and colors can symbolize a mood of sadness, right off the top. The framed picture of the woman could symbolize loss, which would seem like the most likely reason the man in the painting is mourning. The truth is, symbolism can exist anywhere in anything. Particularly in literature, we can find symbols based on the words we read on the paper, and what we never find in the paper, but discover for ourselves. 

One area that is guaranteed to have symbolism in almost any piece of literature is in the environment of the story. The setting, the location, the geography in which the story thrives all help the story to develop into something deeper. One classic phrase, and opener of many novels, has been used timelessly to symbolize something the reader is about to experience: "it was a dark and stormy night". Immediately, we get an understanding of the mood, and theme, and the tone of the piece. The stormy night is not just an observation of weather conditions, but rather symbolizes a dark fate that may befall the plot and the characters. 

Sometimes, they are not this straightforward. In some cases, a thing that has more than one symbol could be completely different from the other thing it symbolizes. For example, we see this in Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Huck and his friend Jim escape down a river on a raft. The same river is responsible for killing Huck's abusive father, as well as being Huck's road to freedom. Twain never explicitly states that the river symbolizes both freedom and fate, but it appears that it actually does. 

When we search for symbolism, we make discoveries that exist within the paper, and yet don't. We allow our minds to make these connections so that the story takes on a deeper meaning. With symbolism, the smallest most straightforward thing can breed new avenues of possibilities. And the possibilities are endless. 

Portraits painted by perspectives

When an author composes his book, he does so with the intention of getting a story across to the reader.  While intentions may be driven towards something exact, the way in which the reader views it may not abide by the thoughts that the author was trying to share with his audience. This "way" is the reader's perspective. The author and the reader both reside within two different spectra. While unique from each other, the differing perspectives connect in order to piece together the definition of the story. But the end product will not always be identical. The outcome results in two different definitions that come from two different perspectives. But this juxtaposition of interpretations helps "build a story from another story".

Suppose you've come across a situation in the story wherein the characters are acting in such a way that connotes desires for sexual actions. Naturally if sexual innuendo is evident in the conversation between the two characters, the human mind will try to highlight the undertones of debauchery and make them as crystal clear as the words on the paper. However, suppose this innuendo wasn't intended by the author. Further suppose that the author may have been trying to throw a fork in the road for his or her readers, whether intentional or unintentional. He or she gives the reader the option to expose the innuendo that may have been brought out by items the characters where using that could represent something sexual. However, the alternative is to carry on with your reading without suggesting that these undertones have the spotlight put on them. Put to each their own.

The fact is, without interpretation, the story has nowhere to go. It is, if anything, at a steady pace without acceleration and without taking turns. But when we process what's on the paper and we become impacted by what we read, the story starts to careen into another lane. Sometimes the act of interpreting a story can be done so in a way that does not oppose the author's perspective, however. For this circumstance, let's suppose a pimply faced teenager has to get food for his mother at a grocery store. During his trip to the store, he encounters an angry german shepherd who tries to attack him. As he makes it to the store, he is accosted by the girl of his dreams who is completely smitten with the school star quarterback. Both of these characters act as antagonists towards the pimply faced boy, who is the protagonist of this situation. Speaking in terms of interpretation, without the aforementioned "careening into another lane", and highlighting the idea of "not opposing the author's perspective", the story can build into something larger. We can view the pimply faced boy as a knight on a quest, doomed to face assailants during his journey and at his point of arrival. The knight is ultimately looking to acquire something (in this case it's grocery store food) so that his quest can become complete.

The idea of perspective doesn't have to make a story grandiose, though. It can be done so that a situation may seem more practical and down to earth so that it may be easier for the reader to follow. Inevitably, we will interpret stories differently from how they may have actually been written, or how our friends may have read them. We are all wired completely different from one another. We do, however share the similarity of being able to turn stories into bigger stories or new stories as our perspectives paint portraits larger than what we could have ever anticipated.