1. WHAT IS A SYMBOL?.
Cartoon shows Scotsman in kilt and a girl in jeans in wrong restrooms due to misunderstanding
pictures on doors. In kilt he entered door with image of person with skirt; she in jeans entered door with image of
person in trousers. Both got into trouble with inhabitants.
2. Symbols pair the concrete with the abstract. Most people recognize the meaning of signs in
their daily lives. Whether it is the image on the restroom or the following:
Picture of birthday candles.
3. Colorful candles usually suggest birthdays. What would you associate with the following?
Picture of two red hearts and picture of a dove with an olive branch in beak.
4. A symbol may be obvious--a name like Mr. Grimm suggesting a person's character or as obvious as this
image:
Drawing of black and white skull.
5. Did you think of Death?
- Skulls are usually associated with death or destruction in some way. Such conventional images are rooted in our
culture and easily recognizable, such as candles for birthdays, hearts for love, or doves for peace.
- But what about private symbols? These are created by authors and have a special significance within a literary work
but not outside it.
6. What do you think this symbol means?
Image of blue dove with wings upraised holding heart within which is a red sunrise or sunset.
7. What did that private symbol suggest?
- Consider it appearing after a war.
- Consider it appearing after a child is born.
- Consider it appearing in a religious story.
Will your understanding of the symbol change with each scenario?
8. Did you notice the use of color?
- Why a blue dove? What do you associate with blue? Heaven? Ocean? Calmness? Serenity?
- Why the wings creating a heart?
- Perhaps after a war, it would symbolize the rebirth of peace from the blodshed.
- Perhaps after childbirth, it could symbolize new life and love.
- Perhaps in a relgious sense it could symbolzie resurrection.
- All meanings have a common thread but are colored by context.
9. Universal and Private Symbols
Picture of a black cat and picture of the pink and purple striped Cheshire Cat from Alice
in Wonderland.
10. Bad luck or Confusion?
Many cultures see black cats as symbols of bad luck but in the Disney version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland,
the striped pink, disappearing Cheshire cat is a figure of nonsense and confusion leaving Alice with just his grin.
So with a bit of color and imagination, you can and soon will be creating your own concrete private symbol.
Picture of grinning round face of a pink Cheshire cat.
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