SYMBOLISM Made in JANUARY 2006 for BUILD/BLANKA in LONDON [UK]

In fiction

The symbol is a concrete thing in the story, literal, see-able, an image: a bridge, a bottle of whiskey, a pebble, a letter, fire. It moves through the story, quietly accruing meanings. And these meanings continue to adhere to the thing throughout the story. For example:

And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out Daisy's light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning---

For Gatsby the green light is his dream of a future with Daisy.

There was always a bottle present, so that it would seem to him that those fine fierce instants of heart and brain and courage and wiliness and speed were concentrated and distilled into that brown liquor which not women, not boys and children, but only hunters drank, drinking not of the blood they spilled but some condensation of the wild immortal spirit, drinking it moderately, humbly even, not with the pagan's base and baseless hope of acquiring thereby the virtues of cunning and speed but in salute to them. Wow. Theres a lot of symbolism in that bottle!

recurs is spotlighted through description appears in prominent places title, opening, ending, climax is dynamic, hard to pin down/define/limit may remain after the story has faded suggests the theme. may reveal more than the writer intended

intrudes persists when cut demands description hovers around the ending is emotional / biographical / spiritual / mysterious, hard to pin down a force for interconnectness a force for characterization (what they want, crave, lose repeatedly, seek, keep doing) trust and follow symbols

Personal Our life experiences affix meanings to things and actions

Skis

Contextual The meanings that affix to a symbol through the

course of the story. Story makes meaningan alchemy.
that culture

Cultural/conventional A shorthand readable by all within

A key = freedom, escape, but less so or not at all in a culture with mass transportation. Black = death, funerals in some cultues, white in others.

Universal Things and actions that have the

same symbolic meaning around the world because we share biology and . . . A world. Morning = new beginnings Green = spring, rebirth Candle = a light in darkness Lions = power Chain = bondage Caution. What IS universal? Darkness = danger, or safety? Red = blood/death or joy/marriage? Snakes = evil, or is that limited to Eurocentric cultures?

A fiction lives as long as its symbols are interpretable and reinterpretable. Why teachers have to hammer home meaning, translatethe symbol has become unmoored from the culture or the prose that sought to describe it in such a way that the it forges connections to meaning is inaccesible to readers or only accessible as an unresonant artifact. Which is why each generation of writers must make it new.

Then Creole stepped forward to remind them that what they were playing was the blues. He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the music tightened and deepened, apprehension began to beat the air. Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about. They were not about anything very new. He and his boys up there were keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen. For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must always be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.

Read the symbolism of your life. Things you lose often, need a lot of. Actions you repeat. Recurring night and day dreams. The songs and photos you love. The things you associate with friends and family. What would it be hard for you to give away? If your best friend was leaving forever, what would you give him/her to take?

1.

Write about something you lose often or would hate to lose. Maybe it means more to you than what it is. Record a sleeping dream and analyze possible symbols in it. Choose an item that your main character cannot live without. Then create a conversation in which a friend asks him/her Why is that so important to you? Answer in your characters voice. Feel free to ramble.

2.

3.

Actions can be symbols too. Anyone who has seen a wedding knows that. When Lyman lets his older brothers car roll into the river, its a powerful, complex, symbolic statement thats hard to put into words, but we feel it. I cant live free and happy without you. For me the car really stood for you. It does with you. Or, perhaps more happily: I hope there is a heaven where youll drive free in a cool convertible.

Part 3 from start to 4:33. Then 6:15 to ? Then Part 7 from 2:00 to 5:00