




Symbols have so many different meanings that I believe we will never be able to comprehend all of them in our short life times. They have all types of different meanings that we will never be able to understand all of them in this eternity. Being able to comprehend and look for symbols sets up for a bigger understanding of literature.  Symbols live in everything we do and they are a huge reason behind things like music, movies, and culture. Using text to understand symbols sets up for a smarter view of life and finding deeper meanings in everything we see and do.

In today’s modern society, you can find symbols almost everywhere. Movies, pictures, music, literature, etc. all display some form symbolism. In the 1941 box office hit, “Citizen Kane”, we see a very good usage of symbolism. The general plot of the movie is that a journalist is trying to find the meaning of the word, “Rosebud.” Kane utters this word moments before his passing. Through many interviews and flashbacks we learn that “Rosebud” was his sled that he played with as a child. Charles Kane’s childhood was ripped away from him as he grew into the role of a man at a very young age. “Rosebud” symbolizes the childhood Kane wanted to return to that he did not get to experience. The movie ends with the sled being burned at his home which could also symbolize the ending of his life and legacy. Kane had no children and so literally his lifeline died with him. This is just a simple example of how only one person views something. Symbolism does not just live in literature. It lives everywhere we go and can always be interpreted in some form.

I believe that symbolism is one of the most important pieces of modern American literature because it causes us to go deeper into critical thinking and makes us understand a wider concept of reality and life. Understanding symbolism makes for a better understanding of life and literature. So many things in our world are taken for granted and become unappreciated. The things that seem so insignificant to our lives can matter so much in other situations. Brian Doyle goes into more depth on this in his writing, “Joyas Volardores.” Doyle takes simple devices and adds an immense amount of detail and meaning to them. In this writing, Doyle mentions a hummingbird in his writing.  He says, “Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms. To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate.” He continues to say, “The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature” (Doyle p. 95). These are the simple things that do not come to mind when a hummingbird is viewed. A hummingbird has to work so hard just to maintain its well-being. Doyle does a phenomenal job of adding so much drive and passion behind a simple creature. He makes the reader realize that we cannot take the smaller things in life for granted and understand that everything has a purpose in this world. Nothing in life is as simple as it seems. Every individual lives and dies. During that period of time, they have some form of drive and goal and each individual should not be dwindled down because how small a life form seems to be. 

No two people view anything in the exact same manner. 7 billion people live on this earth probably have a different viewpoint on any given situation as opposed to a ninety-five year old elderly woman. Diversity creates variation and variation is good for understanding things like symbolism. Symbolism is one of the most important literary devices because it grabs a bigger meaning than any text can display. I can only read so many words but my imagination can run for miles. I can think of many different scenarios and situations but while text can only go into descriptions so far. Understanding symbols sets up a bigger glance at not just literature, but also almost anything that comes across in life. 

I’ve never thought of rivers to be very symbolic. I simply just thought of them as bodies of water that I either played in, or watched peacefully during my childhood. After reading, “Is That a Symbol?” by Thomas C. Foster, I am able to step back and take a wider grasp in literature and understand more concepts. Foster talks about how three different authors write about rivers, yet there isn’t a significant chance their individual symbols on rivers run across the same board. This means that although the authors use the same type of device, a river, they all do not interpret the device the exact same way. Foster explains how Mark Twain, Hart Crane, and T.S. Elliot all have rivers as a crucial part of their individual stories. Twain’s story depicts a river as a setting for two men who come from two completely different backgrounds.  A river knows neither skin color nor laws. A river just flows and keeps flowing. Crane writes a story where a river and a bridge form an ideal of connection. In Elliot’s story, this river is simply repulsive. Disgusting debris floats down the river and it has also been abandoned by its nymphs as well. All these rivers have totally different uses and meanings in their stories. We see how one simple object can be molded to symbolize many different ideologies. Foster does a great job of explaining this when he says, “One of the pleasure of literary scholarship lies in encountering different and even conflicting interpretations.” (Foster p. 23) What is amazing about literature is that it has no base or set definition; It is all interpretive and that is the joy of it all. Many of authors can take things as simple as rivers and spread their depictions of them as wide out as possible. Foster uses all these different authors/stories and exploits them to support how something as simple as a river cannot be simply just a river. 

Symbols live in everything we do or read. Foster uses rivers, caves, and other items throughout his article. A cave to me may simply be a cave, but to someone else, it may represent something else on the opposite end of their spectrum. I see a cave as a sanctuary for those who need it. I live in a building; so I may not think of a cave so greatly but many animals cling to them for survival. It keeps them dry during rainy nights and warmer during the long winter nights. It all matters about the perspective and what things mean to the individual. Foster says, “What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extent by how the individual reader engages the text.” (Foster p. 21). I cannot see what you see.  A cave is a good example to use because people don’t really see caves the same way. You may see a cave as just a cave but that wouldn’t be the same as a speleologist (someone who studies caves). Caves, rivers, wind, air etc. can all be explained in literature as a symbol for anything honestly. Foster was great at taking many stories and explaining the differences between all their symbolic meanings using the same objects.

Symbolism will continue to live until the end of time. Symbols live in literature, movies, music, and television and so on and so forth. Taking simple words and putting so much behind them in many different forms is intriguing to me. I step back and take a wider view at the world. Remember that perspective varies by individual and some may not view a situation as clear or as someone else may. Comprehending literature can help us understand so much about the world and different societies and cultures which allows people to connect and learn more about each other. 



