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Symbolism. Feature Menu. What Is a Symbol? Where Do We Get Symbols? Symbols in Literature Practice Part A Practice Part B. What Is a Symbol?. A symbol is an ordinary object, event, person, or animal to which we have attached a special meaning. [End of Section]. Where Do We Get Symbols?. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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What Is a Symbol?
Where Do We Get Symbols?
Symbols in Literature
Practice Part A
Practice Part B
Symbolism
Feature Menu
[End of Section]
A symbol is an ordinary object, event, person, or animal to which we have attached a special meaning.
What Is a Symbol?
Public symbols
• have been inherited, or handed down over time
• show up in art and literature
Where Do We Get Symbols?
• are widely known
Note
What does each of these symbols stand for? Why do you think they have taken on the meanings they have?
justice luck love
Where Do We Get Symbols?
[End of Section]
Invented symbols
• come about when writers make a character, object, or event stand for some human concern
• sometimes become well known and gain the status of public symbol
Where Do We Get Symbols?
Writers use symbols to
• suggest layers of meaning that a simple, literal statement could never convey
• speak more powerfully to the reader’s emotions and imagination
• make their stories rich and memorable
Symbols in Literature
What might the cake symbolize in this passage?
What is your emotional response to the description of the cake?
Symbols in Literature
Quick CheckThe most prominent object was a long
table with a tablecloth spread on it. . . . An épergne or centrepiece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; . . . I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it. . . .
“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?” . . .
“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!” from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens [End of Section]
lost love, disappointment, holding on to the past
What might the cake symbolize in this passage?
Symbols in Literature
Quick CheckThe most prominent object was a long
table with a tablecloth spread on it. . . . An épergne or centrepiece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; . . . I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it. . . .
“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?” . . .
“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!” from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
It gives me the creeps. It makes me feel sorry for the woman.
What is your emotional response to the description of the cake?
Symbols in Literature
Quick CheckThe most prominent object was a long
table with a tablecloth spread on it. . . . An épergne or centrepiece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; . . . I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it. . . .
“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?” . . .
“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!” from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Where Do We Get Symbols?
Note
Different cultures may attach different meanings to some symbols.
• For example, the symbolic meanings of colors are not universal.
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