I don't care much for symbolism
Looking at movies and books like a sleuth, looking for correlations, is not my thing. That is a very cerebral way to look at stories. I prefer letting them take over me with all they got, symbolism included but mixed with everything else. When it comes to fiction and magic, I wanna watch the trick, not figure it out. Much like magic tricks, I firmly believe that, when dissected, fiction tends to die.
By that I mean that it becomes less appealing.
I'm a little annoyed by the view that, if you don't look for "hidden meanings", your engagement with art is of a lesser quality. As if there was only one acceptable and elevated way to read things.
Much to my delight, people have built interesting symbolism from my writing that I never intended to create. I don't write symbolism, but I tend to use elements that are universal, well-known, and easy to interpret as symbols.
I'm not sure why I wrote this. I just wanted to organize my thoughts about this subject in a place where people are nice.
I guess that is it.
What do you think of symbolism?
I’m always reminded of Steven King’s approach to symbolism. He writes without any conscious regard for symbolism, but then after he is done he reads his work and looks for the symbolism and then he goes back through and emphasizes what he found in its nascent form. In that way, it isn’t too forced but it still adds depth to the writing.
That's a good idea. Young Brazilian writers are often obsessed with symbolism. But they start with symbolism so it doesn't feel organic.
I think that symbolism is an extension of the human need to tell stories. A person reading something you've written is creating an internal narrative about the experience of reading your piece, latching onto mental shortcuts and existing known story patterns to ease the mental load of understanding your writing. Anything is a symbol. Whether you intentionally include them or not, people will read into your words more than you said.
Yes. You're right. Also, I found it delightful when someone made symbolism out of me. That is not something I seek as a reader myself, but symbolism can be a great thing.
In painting, there is the concept of edge control. There are generally three buckets of edges: a hard edge, a soft edge, and a lost edge. In traditional painting, hard edges are used sparingly. Hard edges have no guesswork for the mind - they are definite, they give all the solutions. Useful for subjects, but exhausting when too present. Soft edges describe the gradations of form. Lost edges are what tell the story of the painting - the implication of an edge, without ever defining an edge. They are important because it allows an artist the grace to represent a world too complex to mark down on paper, for the artist to imply detail and have the audiences mind fill in the rest from their own visual bank. It’s the tree that’s actually speckles of light and dark green, that represents a vast forest no painter has the time to individually draw.
Metaphorical storytelling is a way to have soft and lost edges in a narrative. When the plot simply states something, there’s no wiggle room, no space for the uncertainty of real life. When it is implied through metaphor, now the final result is colored by experiences of the reader, and there’s space for the reader to use their own experiences to fill in gap. It’s a way to allow readers to have experiences they otherwise would not be able to have, because no author is omnipotent.
Is that symbolism, or is that just leaving detail to the readers imagination?
I remember in the empire strikes back, Lando tells Han that the millennium falcon used to be his ship. Neither of them expanded on this and it let you as a viewer imagine this wild and rich history between the two of them, colored by your own experiences (I guess Disney later walked everyone through this story letter by letter eventually, but that's besides the point). That's not really symbolism though, it's just the implication of a richer world.
That is true about the multiple experiences. That is possible without symbolism but I understand the point that symbolism is one way to achieve that.
I have seen quite a few young writers invest so heavily in symbolism that a failure in the combination of the symbols can demolish their entire project. Perhaps they should work on creating multiple "edges" as you mention.
I find this is less true if you presume one simple thing: The author is a genius, and you are merely trying to comprehend it. When taken through that best-intentions lens, things hold up better.
I do think the best fiction does hold up to detailed analysis. If a high school class can't dissect a work by discussing themes, topics, symbolism, and ponder the intentions behind the author's work....it's probably not that coherent.
These things don't have to be intentional by the author. The symbolism will often be applied through the lens of the reader.
Part of the reason I love Animal Farm so much is that an communist and a capitalist can reasonably debate about whether it is a critique of Capitalism or Communism, and they would both be right. Orson Wells was an atheist, antifascist, democratic socialist. Knowing that about tne author, we can see it was really a critique of all patriarchal societies.
@unkz mentioned Stephen King, and a similiar thing applies. Now that we can see a lot more of his personal beliefs very publicly, you can go back and read some of his older works and see the characters and themes can have a very different vibe. If King was instead an awful MAGA idiot, it would paint the picture very differently.
Heinlien's work is a lot less fun when you learn that the thick, heavyhanded militarism of Starship Troopers is not a social critique, but an advocacy. It definitely distorted how I felt about my favorite novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistresa.
Re: starship troopers. I'm usually annoying about movies staying true to source, but this is one exception where I'm so delighted by the film, the book is dead to me. Starship Troopers made me the viewer I am today.
Psst: I think you meant George Orwell, not Orson Wells.
Yuuppp. 3AM brain strikes again.
I once wrote a poem, intending to tell a story in a rhyming structure. It was a personal story with powerful emotions from my life history. Rereading that poem the next day, there was strong symbolism that I never intended but it fit the poem and made it more powerful. The writing process can be cool like that.
One of the most frustrating parts of my various literature classes in university was the insistence that every single word on the page was symbolic. We would have discussions on why we thought that the author told us that the walls were a color, and what the hidden symbolic meaning might be.
One time we were looking at the first chapter of The Hobbit and there was an at-length discussion on what the author could have possibly meant by this:
The professor was insistent that there was more to these sentences than telling us that the hobbit was well off, liked visitors, and lived comfortably in an underground home.
I dunno, I thought maybe a children's book might do something a little bit silly and whimsical in door design because it is a children's book.
Nah. Not buying it. If the goal was to do that symbolically then he wouldn't dedicate the next page and a half to directly explaining how the Bagginses never do anything interesting or out of the ordinary.
I used to get so pissed off when teachers would posit those kinds of connections with no further supporting context elsewhere in the work. Like, bro, how am I supposed to take you seriously? This widespread college lit idea that any interpretation is valid if you can support it is probably responsible for the ridiculous glut of bad media analysis on Youtube, which doesn't even make sense because these opinions often don't stand up to the most rudimentary examination. I don't have much patience for it.
From what I know, Tolkien wrote that sentence totally randomly on a blank page while grading assignments. He had no clue what a hobbit was at that point, it just randomly popped into his head. That whole opening was probably him just writing whatever popped into his head while figuring out what a hobbit was. So trying to find symbolism in that is pretty funny to me.
This reminds me to when I was reading game of thrones at the same time as a friend. I remember that every time a prophecy was mentioned, I'd just read through it. Then my friend would ask me, did you see that x character is going to do/be x thing? I'd answer: What? When did it say that? Maybe I'm just bad at interpreting, but I just wanted to read, I didn't want to have to do puzzles.
I can see where you're coming from. However, I disagree with you in the specifics, as well as the characterization itself.
I would consider myself as someone who looks for symbolism and deeper meaning in the media I consume. However, I don't really approach this sort of task in the way you describe. Instead of trying to pick media apart as I experience it, I try to approach it on its own terms and enjoy the ride as far as it goes - which seems very much in line with how you prefer to experience media.
The symbolism and deeper meanings come after the fact and come naturally, when I think back to some of the things I experienced. But even then, I don't approach it like a scientist, looking for some deeper objective truth backed up with facts and logic. My interpretations are personal, and I also don't presume to think that they are the interpretations intended by the author, or equally valid for anybody else who experiences it.
This process doesn't happen with all media, but I would say that my favorite stories are those that I keep revisiting over time, spurred by these contemplations.
I've never been much one for symbolism either. I can appreciate it, and really admire writers who manage to add multiple layers of symbolism, but I'm into a more direct and literal approach. I do love foreshadowing and complex narratives, but those are still fairly direct. So, symbolism can be hit or miss for me (and "miss" is literal).
I think the best approach is when it can be caught after completing a work once. I saw a note by a mangaka that their first priority when writing is entertainment, and that defines my own writing philosophy. I don't want readers to have to trudge through works to enjoy them, and that includes having to analyze every scene for symbolism or overly flowery language just to understand what's happening. Catching symbolism and foreshadowing on a reread or rewatch can be great and make it even more enjoyable, but for the first time? It should just be enjoyable for everyone.