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rustblooms t1_iyaukyp wrote

The thing about symbolism is that it doesn't have to mean what the author intends it to mean. Authors don't necessarily sit down and think about each item in the scene and what it symbolizes.

When thinking and writing about symbolism, you can make your own connections. You can say that the snowball represents loneliness or the snowball represents masturbation as long as you can argue it and give examples of why you think that.

Symbolism is about metaphor... identifying things that represent other things and discussing how they deepen the meaning of the story. Of course it's just a snowball. But you can think of it in more ways and the story can become more meaningful. You aren't limited to one meaning... there can be many.

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supraliminal13 t1_iyazeep wrote

Yes, in most cases symbolism is reader interaction. There are nowhere near as many works written with deliberate symbolism. It's not really a common deliberate written tool.

The problem is that there's plenty of readers who are obsessed with symbolism. Great for the book club discussion or whatever, but then when someone starts to conjure up wild symbolism in everything it gets tiresome to hear. When a teacher forces you to do so, well... that's exactly why there's so many stories about "that damn teacher obsessed with symbolism".

Anyway it would be great if the people obsessed with symbolism also realized that in the overwhelming majority of writing all that "symbolism" is simply what the story meant to them. Not some hidden, clever meaning that they should devote boundless energy towards ensuring that everyone else clearly "sees correctly". Seems like it should take way less effort to realize how annoying that could get, lol.

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rustblooms t1_iyb4iwq wrote

I agree. Some people DO take symbolism way too far and allow it to dominate the story to the extent that conversations miss the story itself and focus on what it could mean. It can get very heavy-handed and unwieldy very quickly.

I personally am the worst at reading with symbolism. I have a BA in lit so I can do it, but I mostly just care about the story! Now that I've finished my PhD (in rhetoric and composition), I've been reading thrillers and mysteries. I love reading like it's mindless TV sometimes. Book snobs would hate me lol.

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AnAquaticOwl t1_iycrdxi wrote

Remember that time an interviewer got into a fight with Ray Bradbury over what Fahrenheit 451 was about?

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