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Power in Literature Short Stories: Part 1 1196 Views


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Description:

This video defines symbolism and analyzes the use of symbolism in stories like The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird. What effect do symbols have, why do authors choose to use them, and how do we recognize them in literature?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

We speak student!

00:03

Power in Literature:

00:05

Symbols

00:07

à la Shmoop.

00:10

Alright and we’re rollin

00:12

Hi from Shmoop global headquarters here in Mountain View, California

00:15

This video is about helping you understand literature

00:19

from a unique perspective.

00:21

You have to understand some basic concepts:

00:24

symbols, setting, and themes, among other things.

00:29

And we’re here talking with Deb Tennen who’s our chief guru

00:32

and literary analysis and all things creative here at Shmoop.

00:36

So Deb, why don't we start with the key concept here,

00:42

what is a symbol?

00:45

Okay, in the most basic sense, a symbol is

00:48

a tangible or concrete object

00:52

that represents an abstract idea. That’s it.

00:56

The symbol can be an actual object, like say

00:59

you wear your grandmother’s necklace

01:01

that she gave you when she passed away, you wear the necklace,

01:04

the necklace is a necklace but it symbolizes

01:06

your love for your grandmother.

01:08

It can also be a person, a person can be a symbol

01:12

of hope if someone has had a really hard life and they've struggled through a lot

01:18

you look up to that person that person has been a symbol for hope

01:21

and perseverance in your life so those are symbols in our everyday lives

01:25

they're really all around us.

01:26

Why do authors use symbols?

01:28

Because symbols are all around us everyday in our lives

01:32

a lot of them will happen accidentally. A writer will just write something

01:36

that they think of as a normal occurrence in their everyday life and then

01:41

a reader will read into it as a symbol because for that specific reader

01:44

it means something, you know,

01:45

more powerful than the author intended it

01:49

but authors will also intentionally use symbols

01:52

that's so that they can be a little more subtle

01:55

In the example of the Great Gatsby, which

01:57

has one of the most famous symbols in all of literature, that green light

02:01

you have Gatsby standing at the edge of a dock, looking out, and he has his hands outstretched

02:07

Nick just says, Gatsby had his hands outstretched,

02:10

toward the green light, across the water.

02:13

Green typically is the color of money,

02:16

and so it's very easy to almost purposely have

02:19

quote misled us a little bit so that we would go with

02:22

the materialistic interpretation

02:24

Yeah, and it’s actually interesting just to rewind a little bit

02:28

when Great Gatsby came out

02:29

it was actually just around the time that stoplights

02:32

became a thing so the green light is actually really complicated one

02:37

because it does represent both the future and the past

02:40

we have Gatsby, you know, looking across and

02:44

basically being stuck in the past this dream of Daisy that he'll never get

02:47

but it's also about you know moving toward

02:50

the future, it could go either way.

02:53

And it's up to the reader to decide which it means

02:55

or maybe it means both.

02:56

Give us one other symbol

02:58

and then let's move on to the actual

03:01

implementation of them.

03:03

Another symbol in a book that a lot of you might have read is the mockingbird in

03:07

To Kill a Mockingbird, the titular character

03:10

we never actually really see a specific mockingbird in the book

03:15

but it comes up again and again in small places and

03:19

we think of it most we think of it most when Atticus basically tells his kids

03:22

"Don't kill the mockingbird," it's basically that

03:25

mockingbirds are these innocent birds they’re not doing anything wrong,

03:30

so we wouldn't kill one.

03:32

The same kinda goes then we extend it to Boo Radley, like don’t bug him,

03:37

he’s just an innocent guy and we’re supposed to slowly realize that

03:41

throughout the book that he too is a Mockingbird

03:43

and then of course Tom Robinson is another mockingbird

03:46

this innocent guy who, he’s handicapped

03:51

we think of him as kind of this innocent guy who can’t really

03:54

defend himself and so he's another Mockingbird

03:58

and he actually does get shot.

04:02

Where is there an overuse of symbols?

04:04

One poor use of symbolism can be when a writer

04:07

forgets that a symbol is also the object that it is.

04:12

For example, we have an apple

04:15

as a symbol of original sin, whatever else you wanna associate with that

04:20

we think of all the fairy tales where the apple is poison,

04:23

we think of Adam and Eve, etc.

04:25

But the apple is also an apple. It’s not just a symbol of something

04:30

So writers, bad writers,

04:33

or writers who haven’t learned this will kind of pull symbols and be like

04:36

“Oh, I can have this object represent this abstract idea” but then they forget that

04:40

the object is also the object and it needs to serve a purpose in the story.

04:43

If it doesn’t make sense in context to have that specific object,

04:48

then the symbol kind of just becomes a little icky.

04:53

How do people recognize symbols?

04:55

The idea is that readers pull out the symbolism themselves, so

04:59

one reader might the apple as just an apple but another who has

05:03

experience reading a lot of biblical literature

05:07

or you know grew up on fairy tales they're gonna read different things into it

05:12

different cultures will also read different symbols in new ways

05:17

so, you know a writer is writing

05:19

to a very specific group of people, but then if someone

05:21

from a different culture comes along and reads it,

05:23

then they might pull something completely different from it.

05:26

Got it, understood.

05:29

What is a symbol?

05:31

Why do authors use symbols?

05:33

Where is there an overuse of symbols?

05:36

How do people recognize symbols?

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