Symbols

Today in class we talked about symbols and how in almost everything you read, there are symbols. The definition of a symbol is a word, phrase, image, or the like having a complex of associated meanings and perceived as having inherent value separable from that which is symbolized, as being part of that which is symbolized, and as performing its normal function of standing for or representing that which is symbolized: usually conceived as deriving its meaning chiefly from the structure in which it appears, and generally distinguished from a sign. (according to Dictionary.com) Symbols are very important and a creative way of writing a poem, story, letter, etc. I thought that it was interesting how you said, "You do not need to fully understand the symbol or even be able to point to the specific symbol to understand the text/meaning." An example that was brought up in class would be the dripping water into the bucket in the play "Enemy of the State". You don't know a hundred percent what it means but you know it means something. I guess I never really realized that we don't always know the meaning of the symbol in the story. Another example would be in "Waiting for Godot". The tree in the story isn't really shown to mean anything specifically but we know that it means something. I never really thought about symbols this way and I thought the lessons was pretty cool.