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by Karen Bernardo
Just as characterization and dialogue and plot work on the surface to move
the story along, symbolism works under the surface to tie the story's
external action to the theme. Early in the development of the fictional
narrative, symbolism was often produced through allegory, giving the literal
event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence.
In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for example, everything and everyone
stands for something else. The protagonist Christian, to no one's surprise,
stands for every Christian reader; his goal, the Celestial City, stands for
Heaven; the places through which he passes on his way -- Lucre Hill, Vanity
Fair, and the like -- stand for the temptations Bunyan felt that Christian
readers were likely to encounter on their journey to salvation. Even the
names of Christian's fellow travelers -- Mr. Feeble-mind, Great-heart, and
the like -- represent not individual characters but states of being.
Allegory is undoubtedly the simplest way of fleshing out a theme, but it
is also the least emotionally satisfying because it makes things a little
too easy on the reader. We feel that we are being lectured to; it's almost
as if the author is stopping every sentence or two to say, "Now pay special
attention to this, because if you don't remember it, you won't get the
point." Essentially, allegory insults our intelligence.
Allegory also, however, limits our perceptions. The best works of
literature are those in which an element of mystery remains -- those which
lend themselves to a variety of interpretations. Strict allegory seldom does
this, which is why religious allegory is generally less satisfying than the
scriptural story on which it was based.
To take allegory to the next higher level, we arrive at something that for
want of a better term can be called symbolism. At this level, there is still
a form of correspondence, and yet it is not so one-to-one, and certainly not
so blatant. Whereas allegory operates very consciously, symbolism operates
on the level of the unconscious. This does not mean that the author himself
is unconscious of the process of creating symbolism -- merely that we, as
readers, accept its input without really understanding how it works.
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example, we discover that Hamlet is
fascinated with actors and acting. Upon reflection, an astute reader
realizes that this is because Hamlet's whole life has become unreal; he is
being haunted by the ghost of his father, his father turns out to have been
murdered by his uncle, his mother has married his father's murderer. The
motif of the actors is a symbol for the unreality of Hamlet's life.
Similarly, near the beginning of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great
Gatsby, there is the famous scene of the Valley of Ashes where Tom
Buchanan's mistress Myrtle lives. Although Fitzgerald never says so, it is
clear that the Valley of Ashes represents the real state of Tom's soul;
although to the outside world his residence is in a mansion on the beautiful
bay at East Egg, where everything is opulent and expensive and tasteful, the
inwardly rotten, spiritually desiccated Tom really "lives" where his "heart"
does, in a grim ashen valley presided over by a billboard decorated with a
huge pair of bespectacled eyes. The eyes represent God, who sees Tom's
actions and knows the interior of his heart, but ominously seems powerless
to intervene.
Other famous symbols are Melville's great white whale in Moby Dick;
Dante's journey into the underworld in The Inferno; and Coleridge's
albatross in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." All these concrete objects
or places carry within them a wide range of associations that stand for
something so ineffable it would spoil the magic to explain it. Symbolism,
therefore, is an integral component of fiction, because it enriches the
narrative by pulling its message down to the level of our unconscious and
anchoring it there. |
