This is a little thought I had. It can seem naïve.
Why do I write? I can write for myself. I can write for others.
I write to clarify ideas, situations or thoughts to myself or to others. I write to try to understand myself or to be understood by others.
The fundamental aim of my writings is to clarify things.
So, why do people are using symbolism in writing? If their goals are the same as mine: I can’t understand their choices. If not, then, I can’t understand why they are writing.
Why could I want to obfuscate my ideas? This act would be again my goals, again me and again my readers.
Why would I try to work against me?
Why do people are using symbolism in their writings? It’s that because they fear what people could think of their ideas?
Writing is an act of truth. I any writing, fiction or nonfiction, the author is here and his truth is talking, just waiting to be listened.
It’s why symbolism in writing doesn’t make any sense… to me.
The Symbolosm of something is often more powerful than the actual object itself. This is a little bit why.
Because, generally, symbolism adds an *extra* layer of meaning. Look at The Great Gatsby, you can easily get the meaning of that book just looking at the surface, but if you take the time to dig a little bit deeper, you find the symbolic meaning underneath. The colors he uses to describe each character come to represent things in and of themselves.
I agree that if a person decides to hide all of their meaning behind symbols they are going to alienate readers. But, if symbols are used to supplement the meaning, then I feel that they can be quite useful.
Hi Emily,
I just re-read what I wrote 3 years ago, and I was right: it was naive
I think I used symbolism to make another point, when it was clearly not the good thing to do and the good way to express my idea.
Anyway, I am happy to be able to read these things again to assess the evolution of my thoughts about these things, over years.
Thanks for this!
Take care,
Fred