You’ve probably noticed that drivers behave the same way when they see certain street signs. The signs don’t even say what is required of them. These are symbols and they appear not only in road traffic, but also in literary texts.
In this explanation you will learn what exactly a symbol is, how to recognize it and how to distinguish it from metaphor and allegory.
Definition of a symbol
A symbol is a signthe representative of a term stands and one fixed meaning Has.
The word symbol comes from ancient Greek symbol and means «identification mark».
A symbol expresses something very specific. You have certainly come across some symbols in everyday life and you have understood their meaning without having to think about what is meant. You know that you should stop at a red traffic light and cross the street when it turns green, because you have learned the meaning of the colors red and green in traffic.
meaning of a symbol
A symbol is a sign, the one assigned meaning Has. That means a certain sign stands for a very specific meaning and most people are aware of this meaning. Symbols are also called symbols and they either come directly as pictures or in the form of words before.
Some symbols have a resemblance to the object of their importance on. This is a well-known example cross icon. Depending on the context in which it is used, it symbolizes Christianity or that someone has passed away. But both can be traced back to Jesus on the cross and most people within the language communityin which this symbolism is used, are aware of this context aware.
That doesn’t mean that a cross symbol is only used in those two contexts, but it’s usually the first thing associated with it.
Mapping a symbol to a meaning is common arbitrarily. That means the appearance and meaning of the symbol no connection to to exhibit what it should mean. It was just set at some point and internalized by conventions. This means that the meaning has been accepted by agreement of all people and has been passed on to succeeding generations.
Imagine someone from another planet comes to earth, sees a red and white triangle on the side of the road and asks you what it means. You explain to him that it symbolizes a rule of the road traffic regulations, but you won’t be able to explain to him why the rule is communicated by a red and white triangle of all things.
Because the shape itself gives no indication of the meaning «give way». Although there is no explainable connection for this, all motorists know the meaning.
function of a symbol
Even ours language is a arbitrary assignment of symbols and meaning. The letters of a certain alphabet all symbolize a fixed sound. Several letters in a row form a word, which also has a fixed, but completely arbitrary meaning.
For this to work, people used to have to agree on which letter should symbolize which sound. The same is true of symbols.
When chatting with your friends, you might also use emojis. These too are symbols.
Symbols are therefore used for communication. So that they also as means of communication can be used, must all the same idea of it to have, what a particular symbol means. If this is not the case, misunderstandings can arise.
Imagine you tell someone about your good grade and the person responds with the hand gesture where the index finger and thumb form a circle together and the remaining fingers are spread out. You would probably interpret the symbol as «well done». However, the same symbol applies in other countries, e.g. B. in Spain or Greece, as an insult.
Symbols as pictorial communication, on the other hand, can be understood unmistakably in almost all countries and languages. If you z. B. If you have to go to the toilets at the airport in a foreign country, you will probably orientate yourself on the symbols that are supposed to represent a male, female or wheelchair user and the arrows that indicate the direction.
The symbol as a rhetorical stylistic device
Words can also have a symbolic meaning. They are also called linguistic images and they are employed in rhetoric in a manner similar to metaphor or allegory. You’ve probably felt the same way while reading encountered a linguistic image. Maybe you didn’t notice it directly as a stylistic device because you knew the meaning.
In the literature, however, there are also symbols that are not recognized as such at first glance because they are either not known or in the work itself only as a symbol develop. Here it is up to you as a reader, the symbol and above all the meaning to identify.
When a symbol is created as a symbol in the work itself, it mostly happens through repetition of a specific term or by using a color symbolism.
word repetitions
Some authors use symbols by use certain words more often. These do not have to appear in consecutive sentences, as you may know from poems. You can distributed throughout the plant and maybe only show up two or three times.
Try to pay attention to whether it is specific Words are, which appear several timesmaybe even in one specific context. So e.g. B. the repeated mention of the sun or a special type of flower to indicate the weather or the environment, but they can also include a symbol.
If at the beginning of the work the mother is presented with lilies by the daughter and it is later mentioned that the lilies have withered, this can symbolize a bad relationship between the characters.
Colours
Mentioning certain colors can also stand for something. Often will emotions symbolized in this way. The following example shows you how color symbology can be used:
Her black heart beats dully in her chest.
If you know that Sblack in the real world the absence of light and this creates darkness, you will realize that this is a Sadness icon or for the evil acts.
But beware! The decisive factor for such an interpretation is the Connection, in which such a symbolism is expressed and the general happenings in the text. Not everything described with black automatically represents evil or sadness.
Most of the time, however, symbols that are known to the general public are used in German lessons. However, you should always remember that authors with the Introducing certain words or colors to have an intention be able. In a text analysis, it may be that this word or color symbolism is important and you need to recognize it and put it in context.
It is best to familiarize yourself with the meaning of colors in literature, then the contexts in which color symbolism is used will be easier for you to read and interpret.
Effect of a symbol in literature
As mentioned, authors often have one purpose in their writing and the symbols used are symbolic of something else. They are often used in literary texts because they are associated with the character deeper meaning to have. As a result, the text is artificially embellished with words on the one hand, and the character appears more lively and multi-faceted on the other.
As you saw in the color symbology example, symbols can also be used to express feelings in a pictorial way. The reader can and should thus get into the emotional state of the character. The sentence would appear different if one were to write: «She is sad.»
symbols in the poem
There are symbols in poetry that are typical of certain periods of literature and are therefore more common. If you know which symbols are used particularly often in which epoch, you can interpret the connections better.
The epoch of romance uses e.g. B. the motives of the night, to symbolize death, transience, or the uncanny or mysterious.
In the following example you can see the first and fifth stanzas of the poem «Der Spinnerin Nachtlied» by Clemens Brentano from 1802:
It sang long years ago
Probably also the nightingale,
That was probably a sweet sound
Since we were together
Since you drove from me
always sings the nightingale,
I think at their sound
how we were together
In the poem, the lyrical I keeps mentioning the nightingale. To interpret what it might mean, look carefully at the context and the stanzas.
You can see that the first stanza directly reports the past («long years ago») and also uses the past tense «sang». In the fifth stanza, the lyrical I tells of the present («sings»). This suggests that the nightingale in this context represents the memory of the past of the lyric self.
You can also inform yourself about the importance of the nightingale outside of literature. A popular belief says, among other things, that the call of the nightingale can also announce death, which could be interpreted as referring to the first stanza.
As already mentioned, the context of the symbol and the rest of the text is very important. As a direct counter-example, here is an excerpt from Theodor Storm’s «The Nightingale» from 1856:
That’s what the nightingale has been singing all night; There are from her sweet sound, There are reverberations and reverberations The roses jumped up.
In poetry, the nightingale often stands for love as well as sadness. That they are here as symbol for love stands, you can get out of that connection between their «sweet sound» and the blossoming of the roseswhich also represent a love symbol, interpret.
As you can see, sometimes a single symbol can have more than one meaning. You must therefore look at the symbol in its entire context in order to interpret it. So, when analyzing, make sure from which literary era the text comes from and which motives typical for this epoch is.
Difference between symbol, allegory and metaphor
Some style figures have a similar effect, but differ in small details. The symbol, the allegory and the metaphor are stylistic figures that cannot always be clearly distinguished from one another at first glance. It is therefore important for your text analysis to know the difference between the three and how to apply them.
One metaphor translates a word into a different context of meaning based on an existing similarity. It replaces the term actually meant by another and transfers the actual meaning into…