




What exactly is a symbol. According to dictionary.com, a symbol is “something used for or regarded as representing something else.” The thing is that some believe that symbols do not have to only represent a single “something”. A symbol is whatever you interpret it as, and not just what a teacher or other people tell you it represents. The way a person interprets a symbol is based on their own life experiences and how they are reading the writing that the symbol is embedded in. There is no wrong way to interpret a symbol, and I think that some people, like students, are scared to voice their opinions on symbols because they think that they may interpret the symbol differently than the rest of their peers. Thomas C. Foster, a known writer, expresses his opinion about symbols in an essay directed towards these students in order to open up minds in the classroom so that teachers and other students can accept their interpretations without thinking that their interpretations are “wrong”. I share the same opinion as Foster, as I have at times kept quiet in class during discussions about symbolism because I did not interpret a common meaning out of a symbol. 

In Thomas C. Foster’s writing, “Is That a Symbol?”, the author repeats phrases such as “Here’s the problem…”, “The problem of…”, and “The other problem with…” in order to inform the audience that a symbol does not necessarily connote with a single idea. Since he uses these phrases similarly each time, it means that Foster is trying to implant an idea inside the readers’ heads. Throughout Foster’s piece of writing, he uses different examples of symbols from other pieces of literature and explains how you can interpret different things from each symbol he introduces. He then uses the certain phrases mentioned previously to contradict the meanings of the symbols in the examples he brings about. 

In the first paragraph, Foster explains how he will ask a certain student “what do you think (the symbol) stands for?” (Foster 18). There is a sudden change of tone at the beginning of the second paragraph when he writes, “Here’s the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean something. Not just anything, but one something in particular” (Foster 18). This is the first time in Foster’s short piece of writing that he contradicts a previous thought. This quote lets the audience know that it is okay to get a different meaning from a symbol than other people. This is a common theme in the similar phrases that Foster uses later on in the short writing. 

The second time Foster uses a similar phrase to contradict the idea that a symbol only represents one certain idea is when he writes, “The problem of symbolic meaning when we look at a number of writers emphasizing…a given symbol” (Foster 21). He is informing the reader to pay more attention to what he is writing about rather than look for “a given symbol” in the example of literature that he is about to introduce. Once again, he said that it is fine to interpret your own meaning of a certain symbol when later in the text, he says that, “not everyone comes from the poem at that angle” (22), and that “These and many other approaches are not only valid but procedure readings of considerable insight” (22). He is trying to drive the idea that symbols can mean anything. It just depends on how the reader interprets those symbols. 

The third time that Foster uses a contradicting phrase is when he writes, “The other problem with symbols is that many readers expect them to be objects and images rather than events or actions” (23). Again, Foster is contradicting a common idea that most people have about symbols. This piece of writing is informative and somewhat motivating to tell the audience that they should not worry if their interpretation of a symbol is different from most people’s. His whole argument about the misconceptions about symbols build up with contradicting phrases. 

The use of repetition in this writing is simply to inform people about a common misconception. Foster’s audience is towards students and teachers in order which lets him bring about the idea of how individuality and different interpretations are okay in the classroom. One story can be interpreted differently by different people based on their experience and the repetition used by Foster is what makes this piece of writing convincing. 