(no subject)

[seekingferret]

When I was in high school, some of my less diligent classmates would argue with our English teachers that surely the symbols we were analyzing in literature were not put in intentionally by the authors and therefore we were wasting our time drawing water from a stone. The author was more or less dead to me, so I didn't really care one way or another.

Well, I'm not dead, and it's interesting to muse, looking back on my fiction, on how more or less intentional my use of literature devices has been. I think the answer for me at least is that sometimes I use various figurations, symbols, and literary devices intentionally, but more often it's sort of half-intentional: I often know the themes I am working towards, and I try to write in a way that brings out those themes, and sometimes that means that I end up investing objects and characters and relationships with symbolic values that service those themes without specifically saying "I'm going to make this character a aymbol of X."

What about other writers who are reading this, how intentional are you when it comes to literary symbols in your writing?

Comments

[thirdblindmouse]

Why less diligent? I remember in middle school having big problems with the concept when literature analysis was first introduced.

[seekingferret]

They weren't arguing because they didn't understand the concept, they were arguing because they wanted to get out of writing an essay.

[cahn]

On the other hand, I remember in high school when we were reading Great Gatsby, we understood the concept of symbolism, but thought that the Eckelburg eyes being consciously symbolic of anything (or the green light) was a load of crap and completely stupid...