Taylor Faust 

Professor Smith

English 101 – 029

8 December 2016

Essay 1

Interpreting symbols is often important because it helps the reader to paint a picture in their mind, which in turn makes the story more applicable to whomever is reading it. In the story, “Is That A Symbol?”, Thomas C. Foster attempts to demystify symbols and their ambiguous meanings. His work aims to argue that anything can be a symbol and mean something different for everyone while not necessarily standing for one object or idea; and imagination is essential to interpreting those symbols in order to find a meaning that becomes relevant to the individual reader.

An argument made by Foster is that most things in literature can be seen as a symbol if that is the way they are approached. A bridge could mean nothing to one reader, while another finds the entire purpose of the story in the bridge. Neither interpretation is wrong, just different. The same reader that thought nothing of the bridge could interpret the river that they cross as the key to the story’s greater meaning. The greater meaning of a work can also be dependent on how the reader interprets it based on their experiences. The author may not have even intended for an object to be taken as symbolism; however, if it adds to the reader’s experience, then Foster’s advice is to go with it. He explains, “That’s one of the most common questions in class, followed by the answer I generally give. Is that a symbol? Sure, why not”(Foster 18).

Once the validity of a symbol has been assessed, the accuracy of the assessment comes under scrutiny. Foster’s main argument and purpose for his short story is to explain his point that “in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing for only one thing” (18). He asserts that everyone interprets symbols differently because of their differing life experiences. Foster believes that readers now are plagued with the idea that symbols “mean something. Not just any something, but one something in particular” (Foster 18). Foster uses stories as examples to support his view. He gives a quick synopsis of the novel, A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, describing a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law going into a legendary cave with an Indian physician. The mother-in-law feels that people are all around them in the dark cave; therefore, she runs away in fear. Foster admits that the cave probably does have a deeper meaning; however, he also presents the multiple ways in which a reader could interpret the meaning of the cave. Foster reveals, the “message might be that the caves must be experienced before they can be understood or that every person’s caves are different” (20).

No one has lived the exact same lives or experienced them in the same ways, and those differences are what make people and the way they think different. He says, “If we want to figure out what a symbol might mean, we have to use a variety of tools on it: questions, experience, pre-existing knowledge” (Foster 19). This pre-existing knowledge and experience is what he argues is different for every person. People bring different history with them no matter where they are, and Foster is explaining that this baggage can affect even the way they think about menial stories and novels. Foster says, “What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extent by how the individual reader engages the text…These factors will inevitably influence what we understand in our reading, and nowhere is this individuality clearer than in the matter of symbolism”(21). 

Foster is also bothered by the fact that symbols are thought to mean one exact thing in every instance that they are used. Later in his short story, he analyzes the same symbol in three different works: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Bridge, and The Waste Land. His point in discussing all three together is to emphasize that, in each instance, the river discussed stands for something different. While the rivers for Twain and Crane are, according to Foster’s interpretation, intended to represent a road or connection of some sort, Eliot’s is seen as symbolizing the corruption of the modern world. Foster says, “You will have noticed in these last pages that I assert meaning for these uses of caves and rivers and symbols with considerable authority, and indeed I have a pretty strong grasp of what they mean – for me. The authority I bring to these readings is that of my own background and experience” (22). He is saying that these other authors also may have their own interpretations of their rivers and the reader can as well. The reader-writer relationship can go in both directions. The way that the author interprets their own symbols can have some sort of effect on how the reader interprets them also.

According to Foster, imagination and feelings are essential to the interpretation and basic reading of any literature. Reading literature involves a person seeing the story play out in their head, and in order to do that, the way a certain piece makes someone feel or react must be acknowledged. Foster says, “We tend to give writers all the credit, but reading is also an event of the imagination”(23). What makes reading different from movies or television is the combining of two imaginations. The author provides the details but it is up to the reader to determine everything else and derive meaning from the work. A movie provides the audience with everything and really no emotion or deep analysis is necessary. Foster is trying to convey that what makes reading special is “the act of one creative intelligence engaging another” (Foster 24). The converging of two separate backgrounds and ideas to extract meaning from the same piece is what he believes is special to writing. The symbols may not look or convey the same message for everyone, but through an individual’s imagination, they will relate to their own lives. Though Foster has a dominating tone throughout the work, this is crucial to making his point about meshing personal background with a story’s message. Foster says, “Listen to your instincts. Pay attention to what you feel about a text. It probably means something” (24).

Everyone experiences life differently even if they go through the same situations. People are impacted by those similar instances differently. This is one of the grand points that Foster is trying to make. The way that people interpret writing, and really anything, is based on what they have been through in their lives. There is no right or wrong way of interpreting symbols and finding meaning in them. Writing should impact the reader in some way, and by relating the text to personal experiences, the work takes on a much greater meaning.

Works Cited

Foster, Thomas C. “Is That A Symbol?” The Carolina Reader, edited by Nicole Fisk and Ben

Harley, Hayden-McNeil, 2016, pp. 18-24.