
When Thomas C. Foster, a highly respected retired English professor writes something, people tend to pay attention.  A former New York Times bestseller, he is nothing short of respected and appreciated in his field of work.  So when he published How to Read Literature Like a Professor, his advice was going to be listened and adopted by a lot of people, both who are scholars and who are not.  One chapter, titled “Is That a Symbol”, talks about symbols in many ways.  Foster explains the importance of symbolism in literature and why many authors use symbols in their writing.  Some authors even inadvertently use symbolism because their readers dive deeper into the text in ways that go beyond what the author intended.  So the question is why use symbols.  Symbols are what give a story something to discuss because a symbol never has one exact meaning, and without symbols, stories would have few reasons for second reads and further analyzes.  Foster explains this concept thoroughly with one paragraph, of one chapter, of one read.

Foster’s main objective in this chapter of his story is to understand the concept of symbols and symbolism as a whole, and to help the readers understand what it mean, and why we use them.  He uses examples from various stories as his way of enforcing the argument from the river in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to the cave in A Passage to India, and the bridge from The Bridge.  Using these examples, Foster drills home the importance of symbols in literature as it adds layers of content.      

It’s only natural for the individual to have a clear answer to a problem. It makes people feel better about themselves and depending on the issue; it makes humanity feel better as a whole.  Symbols however will never make people feel any better in terms of having a clear definition.  “We want it to mean something, don’t we?  More than that, we want it to mean some thing, one thing for all of us and for all time” (Foster 19).  The whole reason as to why people interpret symbols and go back and try to interpret them again is to find the truth, the real answer.  The problem with having one clear answer is that it no longer is a symbol, its allegory.  Allegory is the definition, the subject is not open to interpretation, and therefore it only means one thing.  By only having one definition, there is no need for conversation about that topic.  When everyone knows what something means, why ever go back, there’s no real point.  

“It waits somewhere deeper, and part of what it requires of us is to bring something of ourselves to the encounter” (Foster 19).  A symbol will never throw itself into the spotlight, it will never be sitting right there for everyone to stare at.  Symbols are always hidden, some more well-hidden than others, but they are never on the surface.  The reader or viewer, depending on the situation, always has to be prepared to be an archeologist and dig up what certain things mean.  An example of this is the feather in Forest Gump.  The feather that flew away at the ending of the movie could’ve represented the freedom that Jenny had been yearning for her entire life. She was finally able to escape drugs, sex, addiction, guilt, and everything that was thrown her way to finally be free.  Jenny even mentions that she wanted to be a bird, and the feather could be the bird.  The feather could also represent the shackles finally being released from Forest and that he can finally move on.  Forest now has a kid and he is finally ready to put everything that had happened behind him and start the next phase of his life.  This is where Foster saying that “part of what it requires of us is to bring something of ourselves to the encounter” comes in.  The definition is up to the individual to figure out.  The subject’s personal feelings and experiences come in to play and dictate what a symbol could mean.  That is what makes symbols so special, because there is no definition for a symbol in a book or a movie; the subject is free to make up his or her own mind.  Symbols embody an individual’s freedom of expression because one person’s theory can be the exact opposite of another person’s.  

With that being said the question remains; aside from using a person’s unique experiences and views, how else do we figure out what a symbol means?  According to Foster, “we have to figure out what a symbol might mean, we have use a variety of tools on it: questions, experience, preexisting knowledge” (Foster 19).  In other words, Foster says that our own knowledge plays into the meaning of a symbol.  While individual characteristics play a role, what good are those qualities if there is no knowledge of the subject?  The answer: none.  Unfortunately, this means that symbols can only apply to so many people based on the individual’s ability to identify a symbol when one is there.  And while a lot of people know how to identify a symbol like the back of their hand, others just can’t.  Many people are very concrete when it comes to life.  They don’t understand sarcasm or deeper meanings not necessarily because they are not smart enough, but because they’re missing that component.  But for the people that can identify a symbol, preexisting knowledge and the ability to dissect the writer is critical.  People may have different definitions of a symbol because they may think what the writer is presenting is deeper than what it already is.  To some this can be seen as overthinking an issue, but for others it’s what they believe is the truth.  These people believe what they think the author’s definition of the symbol is, is way too obvious to be correct, and because of that, they question what the writer’s true intention was throughout the story and go out to find little hints that could lead to a more satisfying answer.  

Symbols are a critical part of literature and culture as a whole.  They provide the subject with an open ended topic that anyone can discuss and draw their own conclusion on.  Symbols have always been a part of our culture and people have been interpreting symbols for millenniums.  There open meanings provide hours upon hours of open ended conversations and the population of symbols are seemingly infinite.  Foster only selected a few notable examples of the seemingly endless amount that exist in books, movies, entertainment, and much more.  In one paragraph, Thomas Foster describes why symbols exist and why people go crazy over them, why symbols are so valuable, why it’s so much more valuable than allegory, how to figure out what a symbol is, and what factors contribute to a person’s unique conclusion about symbols.  Symbols are such an invaluable part of our society that it’s hard to imagine a world with only allegory, a world where everything only has one meaning and that’s it.  Would mankind be where we are today, we’ll never know but one thing is certain, it would be an entirely different world.  
