Symbolism in Writing

Analyzing William Goldman, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry James in high school and college English classes put me off using symbolism in my writing for a long time. I still shudder whenever I see a copy of “Lord of the Flies”, and I consider “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and “Turn of the Screw” only fit for target practice. Whether those books are in fact any good is irrelevant. I can’t look at them without experiencing horrible flashbacks to discussions over what the color of each character’s eyes means, not to mention the weather, clothing, and food choices.

I very nearly abandoned becoming a writer because of those encounters with Analyzing Literature. I definitely wrote very sparse, literal and non-descriptive prose for a long time to avoid any hint of symbolism creeping into my work. I still turn slightly green (with nausea, not envy) and head in the other direction if I see an author attempting to infuse Great Literary Meaning into a story.

Twenty-odd years later, however, I’m able to look the notion in the face and even admit that I’m using symbolism myself these days. Let me pause here and define symbolism, with a little help from Merriam-Webster online: using the visible to express the invisible; using a system of codes and signs to represent abstract concepts. That’s my paraphrasing, of course, but look it up for yourself if you think I’m off track.

There are many levels of symbolism, and I avoid the English class level. The color of Alyea’s eyes doesn’t mean a damn thing, and the rocky terrain she passes through on her initial journey south isn’t intended as a foreshadowing of the troubled times ahead of her. The tensions between southerners and northerners is not designed to be a direct comment on real-world racial issues: skin color has nothing to do with the divide here, except as a topical indicator of heritage. And so on.

The symbolism I use is generally obvious, but not ostentatious. For example, characters do use jewelry, tattoos, colors, herbs, and animals to convey messages, but the meaning of those messages is only explained in the text if the point of view character would reasonably know it–or if another character would be willing to explain it to them. Otherwise, the meaning is listed in the glossary, so that interested readers can add another layer to their understanding of what’s going on. This is absolutely deliberate, because in “real life”, lots of little signals pass us by when we meet with someone from another culture. If we do catch the cue, we either infer the meaning from context, or we look it up later at our leisure, or we (more often) just ignore it completely. So as Alyea and Idisio move through completely different cultures, they don’t always have a great understanding of what’s going on around them; they’re missing or misunderstanding culturally different symbols.

In that respect, Deiq is probably the most interesting character for me to write. He’s been around long enough to know not only the symbology of dozens of different cultures, but also to have watched those symbols develop over hundreds of years (which why he’s so cynical when faced with what others consider “appropriate” behavior). Using his POV gives me all sorts of chances to drop in bits of story-relevant history and culture that the other characters just wouldn’t know.

I’m not so averse to symbolism as I once was, but I do think that my wariness has made my writing stronger. I’m not trying to be Literary; instead, I see symbolism as an important part of everyone’s lives, especially in an essentially medieval culture. I believe writing about it requires a light touch and an eye to how the character would perceive it; in Secrets of the Sands, Alyea is essentially a-religious, as are Idisio and Scratha. They believe in the gods, but don’t see any real value in active worship or prayer. Therefore, their thoughts and actions aren’t going to involve much attention to religion or religious symbolism. Encounters with “true believers” will more than likely leave them baffled and mildly annoyed. The symbolism of folktale and myth, on the other hand, is likely to catch and hold in Alyea’s memory. Idisio will be very aware of “street codes”, from the grackling of a seagull to the way someone is dressed. Scratha will know more about southern than northern symbolism, and is more than likely to miss a northern cue or ten, just as Alyea is going to miss the southern cues almost every time.

By the time they get into the second book, Guardians of the Desert, Alyea is starting to catch on to the subtleties of southern symbolism, enough to know what she doesn’t know yet. Further books give her an increasingly deeper understanding of how to interpret what she’s seeing around her, at which point she runs into trouble when trying to communicate with people who aren’t as informed: folks who see a lizard as a cheap meal instead of as a symbol of quick wit and subtlety, a wren as a tiny bird, a piece of jewelry as simple ornamentation.

All that being said, I know that each reader will see different meanings and implications in the books, and that’s perfectly fine. I just hope nobody tries to analyze why Idisio has grey eyes and Deiq has black and whether a green shirt means something in one scene and a blue shirt means another; if you do, it’s your own rabbit hole you’re jumping down, not one of mine.

Mine’s complicated enough, trust me. You don’t need to create your own.

….a bit of mushroom, anyone?