avident Posted March 21, 2009 Report Share Posted March 21, 2009 My biggest weakness in terms of analyzing literature is definitely symbolism. I have very limited knowledge about different symbols and I was hoping we could start a conversation, where we would present different symbols and learn them. I think this would be very helpful for our A1 languages. As I said, I don't know that much about symbols, but in my most recent essay I analyzed bees and flowers as a symbol of fertility and reproduction and ... that's about it. See? I'm not all that good. What are the most essential symbols every IB student should know? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted March 21, 2009 Report Share Posted March 21, 2009 I dunno, I find with symbols it's just... what they make you think of. So like religious symbols (christian thingies like crosses and thorns and things vaguely related to that religion) should make you think of religion, then there's the run-of-the-mill symbols like red for danger/death, yellow for cowardice, roses for love, gold for wealth and opulence (also self-indulgence), purple similar to gold (due to the whole romans valuing purple dye as most expensive) etc etc. Sort-of just things which make you think of other things! (: If you come across something you suspect is symbollic of another thing, pause and see if it reminds you of something else which is in keeping with the rest of the play/novel. Symbollism is more or less just analysing common mental associations, or so I find. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tilia Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 (edited) Other obvious ones are sun=happiness, rain=sadness (Read Kafka?), weather in general, food in general ([i]Like Water for Chocolate[/i]) white=(innocent), black=(death, grief) etc etc etc. There are plenty of examples of symbolism in those A1 novels we read, at least. Pretty much anything can be interpreted symbolically. Edited March 22, 2009 by Tilia Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Sarantakos Posted March 22, 2009 Report Share Posted March 22, 2009 (edited) Bees and flowers can also be a symbol of source of life, without bees a lot of plants would cease to exist, and without plants humans would be exterminated. Like Tilia said, Kafka has great usage of symbolism, read Metamorphosis, there are a lot of other good plays with amazing symbolism, like Antigone, or The House of Bernarda Alba. Edited March 26, 2009 by Nik Sarantakos Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hermine0817 Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 Hmmm... bees and flowers could also symbolise the relationship between a man and a woman. The flower would be the female representation whereas the bee would be the male representation. About the symbols.... you would just need to have an extensive background knowledge and most symbols are simple examples from everyday life. You just would have to get used to recognizing them, but else, it wouldn't be that hard to analyze a symbol. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flippy Posted April 7, 2009 Report Share Posted April 7, 2009 [quote name='avident' post='41312' date='Mar 21 2009, 11:55 PM']My biggest weakness in terms of analyzing literature is definitely symbolism. I have very limited knowledge about different symbols and I was hoping we could start a conversation, where we would present different symbols and learn them. I think this would be very helpful for our A1 languages. As I said, I don't know that much about symbols, but in my most recent essay I analyzed bees and flowers as a symbol of fertility and reproduction and ... that's about it. See? I'm not all that good. What are the most essential symbols every IB student should know?[/quote] I think it definitely depends on the piece of literature you are analysing. I agree there are general ones, like light would mean something positive for example, but it definitely definitely depends on the context in which the symbol is used. Trying to take the symbols out of context and learning different ones without keeping the literature in mind might not be the best idea. What I think you might need help with is not what the symbols actually mean, but the purpose and effects of the symbol. Also, the characters' relationship with the symbol develops theme, tone, message, and so on. I'll give you an example. In the play Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen, the guns are symbolic of Hedda's masculinity (that's what I think, anyway.) OK, so let's just say the pistols mean masculinity. That's it. What else can you say? You can say that the purpose of the pistols was to shock the Victorian audiences. A woman playing around with pistols at that time would not adhere to the Victorian ideal. This relates to the theme of the oppression of women (in a nutshell.) The way Hedda's husband reacts to how she plays with the pistols is indicative again of the oppression of women as well. Also, Hedda uses these pistols as an outlet. She cannot entertain herself with more "feminine" activities and uses the pistols to escape her boredom. The pistols also increase tension, provide a bit of foreshadowing, etc etc etc Of course you'd develop it more than I have, but this is just an example. Don't just think about symbols as "symbols" which are supposed to stand for something. What else do they tell the reader/audience? What other purposes and functions do they serve? I hope I've helped! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
meh Posted April 11, 2009 Report Share Posted April 11, 2009 I found that my teacher really liked when I used symbols that were less obvious, that required a bit of explaining. For example: a cigarette = silent killer or a blender = change. My advice would be to try to stray away from the obvious connatations that certain objects have. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
biochem Posted April 11, 2009 Report Share Posted April 11, 2009 What are the most essential symbols every IB student should know? this is a wrong direction into symbolism. What every IBer knows wont help you score higher than the average or below average Joe. I was listening to a friend of mine, and they described a staircase being climbed as a path on to the future between the two people, cause they were both on it. It blew everyone's mind away and really opened our eyes to looking at literature from a different perspective. you need to find a unique way of looking at something. dig very deep deep. If you cannot get ready for the books you will be analyzing for a oral by just reading them, then you should have an amazing view and concept of the overall book. That way, the symbolism might come to you then later on when you have that 20 minutes to annotate. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hermine0817 Posted April 17, 2009 Report Share Posted April 17, 2009 [quote name='biochem' post='42966' date='Apr 11 2009, 04:26 PM']What are the most essential symbols every IB student should know? this is a wrong direction into symbolism. What every IBer knows wont help you score higher than the average or below average Joe. I was listening to a friend of mine, and they described a staircase being climbed as a path on to the future between the two people, cause they were both on it. It blew everyone's mind away and really opened our eyes to looking at literature from a different perspective. you need to find a unique way of looking at something. dig very deep deep. If you cannot get ready for the books you will be analyzing for a oral by just reading them, then you should have an amazing view and concept of the overall book. That way, the symbolism might come to you then later on when you have that 20 minutes to annotate.[/quote] I would agree with Biochem. In my experience so far, my English teacher gave us more points when we had unique ideas than when we had some kind of general idea such as darkness means fear. Speaking out of experience, we had to hand in an essay sometime where we had to analyze an extract of the novel where a boy and a girl who have met each other not long ago were playing on a swing. The boy was pushing the girl from behind but she didn't want to go higher. The general interpretation of this was "The girl doesn't like heights", "The boy is livelier than the girl." But there is a guy in our class who interpreted that as "The boy has a more outgoing character and wants to go a step further in their relationship as well and he shows this through pushing the swing as if he would push their relationship forward. The girl on the other hand is more hesitant about that and needs some time to gather herself before being friends with the boy." Naturally, that student got a 7 on his essay. So the thing is just to come up with something totally unique rather than something chewed through. Be imaginative. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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