My Song Of The Week

Symbolism

Back when I was a High School kid, I had immense difficulty with English classes run by one Mr. Lucas. Until I met Mr. Lucas, my essays were fine and got good marks, but Mr. Lucas just didn't think what I had to write was any good. If anybody would be freaked out by the fact that I've made a partial living writing and getting paid for it, it would be Mr. Lucas without a shred of a doubt.

One of the big things he used to want us to write about was symbolism. As in "the madness of Lear in the heath scene is symbolic of the breakdown of order in Lear's universe," or "The most important symbol in '1984' is the omni-present screens which are symbolic of the ever-present power of the state apparatus," and so on.

Maybe I was a little obtuse, but I always thought symbolism and pointing to something because it was symbolic was a bit arbitrary. In fact I used to have this conversation a lot outside of English class with my fellow students in Mr. Lucas' class as to "what exactly does he mean, symbolic, and why should it be so important to go around pointing out symbolic bits in a book?"

Today, many years later and now that I have read a bit more, I would argue that symbolism still sucks as a critical tool. That is to say, you could says something was a simile, where the author likens something to something else; or it is a metaphor, where the author is trying to convey and essence of something from something else; or it is metonymy where something minor substitutes for the major characteristic of something.

But symbolism? What is that? It could be a substitution of meaning for anything by anything, and at best you are guessing at what the author thought is an important connection between two, unlike things. An extreme version of this might be 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus where the main character commits a murder and blames it on the sun. The symbolic school of criticism probably understands the sun's rays a symbol of God's judgment or the Devil's temptation or a break down in a conscience. Whatever the case may be, the reader is simply grasping at possibilities, but Camus chooses not to elaborate.
Orwell does in '1984'. O'Brien tells Winston that the future will be the little guy getting his face kicked in over and over and over again. The Jackboot is the symbol of the future. So is it really worth noting in an essay? I guess it is but it is a metaphor first and symbol second.

Take the picture of the girl with the tattoo above. The tattoo seems laden with *some* kind of meaning, but if you don't know what those elements mean, it's kind of a graphic gibberish featured on a nice flat tummy. However, it is easily (and much better) understood as the metaphor for the crass stupidity of contemporary youth.

In a similar vein, if King Lear is mad, isn't it just his madness and the storm, and the symbols are largely decoration and ornamentation? I've often pondered this over the years since High School - so I guess Mr. Lucas was a good teacher after all - but it doesn't change the fact that I still disagree with the way he wanted us to write about texts, all these years later.

Anyway, I did a collborative piece with a guy calling himself feenixx called 'Brute Cymbalism'.
My latest track is here.