I need help!

[lime123]

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this.
but this is all too confusing.
but neways....

Question: how are symbols used in life and literature?
why are they used in life and literature?
*would be helpful if yu gave me some examples too.

can anybody please answer these???

[shweta]

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this.
but this is all too confusing.
but neways....

Question: how are symbols used in life and literature?
why are they used in life and literature?
*would be helpful if yu gave me some examples too.

can anybody please answer these???

hello. Symbols are basically the character of life, so do in literature. Just like you feel for somebody and a symbolic attitude of the person comes in your mind which says about the person's attitude. While this is a very simple explanation of ur question but i think from very practical part of life literature could be understood. Especially when it has been read or experienced not so much. Good wishes. bye.
shweta

[shweta]

I think u start reading the existentialists if u want to understand the symbols more and also Shakespeare.

[lime123]

ohhhhhh.
thankyou. :yawnb:
it makes more of a sense.
existentialists?

[mousemouse]

I think symbols are used i different ways in literature -as well as in life, so there is no easy answer to your question.
In some forms of fiction symbols are used as a way of showing emotions or psycological perspectivs that aren't easily explained. In other forms - like during the symbolistic tilmes in scandinavian, german and french literature it is used to describe a sort of god-like author-expirience where everything somehowe is connected.
In ordinary life symbols go from simple trafic signs to more specific symbols in conversations etc., and they can describe pretty much everything.
I think they are used primarily to describe things of many different sorts in an easier manner than it would be possible otherwise.

[litlearner]

Here are some quotes that might be useful to you.
"Symbol" [or sign] a person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents or "stands for" something else. Often the thing or idea represented is more abstract, general, non- or superrational, the symbol more concrete and particular."
For example, an apple might stand for the apple in the Garden of Eden. But, it depends on the context it is in.
Umberto Eco says this about symbols, "When something in the text seems out of place, excessive, inexplicably emphatic, that is where to seek a hidden second meaning. Sensitivity to the symbolic mode stems from having noticed that there is something in the text that has meaning and yet could easily not have been there, and one wonders why it is there.” (152). It inspires in us the question—Why are you here at this particular point?"
At this time of the year, if you see lights decorating a home, what are they a sign of? Christmas or the holidays. The lights are meant to signify Christmas and depending on your own traditions and associations, perhaps much , much more.

[ennison]

In life certain common symbols are used. The Canadian flag with its maple leaf is a symbol. Made of fabric that flag represents something much greater than itself. So with all flags. Doves are international symbols of peace. The lion is a symbol of bravery (lazy beast). The pig a symbol of dirt (undeserved). The Statue of Liberty a symbol of American political values. Writers create their own symbols for their own purposes. To go back to an earlier post on the novel 'To Kill A Mockingbird',the author, Lee, there created her own symbol in the mockingbird (It stood for the idea of innocence) and by repeating mention the symbol became a motif through the novel. Generally I disike heavy-handed symbolism of the type practised by D H Lawrence but without doubt used cleverly and subtley it can be very effective both as a feature that the alert reader enjoys and as a significant manipulative tool. Advertisers use it in that way --for manipulation.

[Whifflingpin]

"a symbol of American political values."

And I always thought that was Tammany Hall

[ennison]

A little addition. A poem by Wendy Cope which is called 'Titch Miller' uses a very neat little symbol to suggest the embarrassed feeling of the last two girls picked for a playground team. There is a passing reference to them standing against the links of the fence while their fate is debated by those choosing. The girls look up to see a bird overhead flying free. The combination of the reference to the fence - imprisonment and the bird - liberty, shows the clever use of symbolism to create ideas and reactions in the reader. Sometimes we have a response to a piece of text and it is almost a sub-conscious reaction to a writer's symbolic structures. Metaphor can have the same effect