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1、linguistic code? for example, are there any neologisms (such as “portentous infants”)? are there any semantic, syntactic, phonological, or graphological deviations? such deviations are often the clue to special interpretations associated with traditional figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy,

2、 synecdoche, paradox, and irony. if such tropes occur, what kind of special interpretation is involved (for example, metaphor can be classified as personifying, animalizing, concretizing, synaesthetic, etc)? context and cohesion here we take a look at features which are generally fully dealt with in

3、 discourse analysis. under cohesion ways in which one part of a text is linked to another are considered; for instance, the ways sentences are connected. this is the internal organization of a text. under context, roughly the material, mental, personal, interactional, social, institutional, cultural

4、, and historical situation in which the discourse is made, we consider the external relations of the literary text or a part of the text, seeing it as a discourse presupposing a social relation between its participants (author and reader, character and character, character and reader, etc.), and a s

5、haring of knowledge and assumptions by participants. cohesion: does the text contain logical or other links between sentences (eg coordinating conjunctions, linking adverbials), or does it tend to reply on implicit connections of meaning? what sort of use is made of cross-reference by pronouns (she,

6、 it, they, etc), by substitute forms (do, so, etc), or ellipsis? is there any use made of elegant variationthe avoidance of repetition by substitution of a descriptive phrase (as “the old lawyer” substitutes for the repetition of an earlier “mr jones”)? are meaning connections reinforced by repetiti

7、on of words and phrases, or by repeatedly using words from the same semantic field? context: does the writer address the reader directly, or through the words or thoughts of some fictional character? what linguistic clues (eg first person pronouns i, me, my, mine) are there of the addresser-addresse

8、e relationship? what attitude does the author imply towards his/her subject? if a characters words or thoughts are represented, is this done by direct quotation, or by some other method (eg indirect speech, free indirect speech)? are there significant changes of style with respect to different perso

9、ns (narrator or character) who is supposedly speaking or thinking the words on the page? what is the point of view of the story? are the frequent shifts of point view? if so, in whose voice is the narrator speaking? chapter seven symbol what is symbol? symbol, in the simplest sense, anything that st

10、ands for or represents something else beyond itusually an idea conventionally associated with it. objects like flags and crosses can function symbolically; and words are also symbols. (p. 218. oxford concise dictionary of literary terms.) a symbol is a thing that suggests more than its literal meani

11、ng. it exists widely even in our daily life. our language itself is symbol. the daily greetings indicate that the passage of communication is open. ring is a symbol of eternity. the sign of cross indicates atonement. the big ben symbolizes london, the great wall china. ritualistic acts are symbolic.

12、 in church wedding the bride is handed over from the father to the groom. holy eating is symbolic of communion, baptizing cleansing and rebirth. the raising and lowering of a national flag certainly suggest meanings larger than the acts themselves. and finally toasting and shaking hands on formal or

13、 informal occasions. as rhetorical device, symbol is different from metaphor, which is literally false but figuratively true. unlike allegory, which represents abstract terms like “love” or “truth,” symbols are perceptible objects. in literature almost anythingparticular objects, characters, setting

14、, and actionscan be symbolic if the author wishes to make it so by either hinting or insisting that the material means more than it literally does. symbols are suggested through special treatment such as imagery, repetition, connotative language, or other artistic devices. in f. scott fitzgeralds no

15、vel the great gatsby, a huge pair of bespectacled eyes stares across a wildness of ash heaps from a billboard advertising the services of an oculist. repeatedly appearing in the story, the bespectacled eyes come to mean more than simply the availability of eye examination. a character in the story c

16、ompares it to the eyes of god; he hints that some sad, compassionate spirit is brooding as it watches the passing procession of humanity. such an object is a symbol: in literature, a symbol is a thing that refers or suggests more than its literal meaning. there are quite a lot of symbols that appear

17、 in ordinary life, for the use of symbol is by no means of limited to literature and art. for instance, a dove is a symbol of peace, the flag is the symbol of a country, and the cross is the symbol of the christian religion. these are symbols adopted by a whole society and are recognized by all memb

18、ers of such a society. there are other kinds of symbols, such as figure 3, which may be abstract symbols. but symbols in literature works are different from either of the other types. generally speaking, a literary symbol does not have a common social acceptance, as does the flag; it is, rather, a s

19、ymbol the poet or the writer adopts for the purpose of his/her work, and it is to be understood only in the context of that work. it differs from the kind of symbol illustrated by the figure 3 because it is concrete and specific. a poet or a writer uses symbols for the same reason he/ she uses simil

20、es, metaphors, and images, etc: they help to express his/her meaning in a way that will appeal to the senses and to the emotions of the reader. most symbols, in literature and everyday life as well, possess a tremendous condensing power. their focusing on the relationships between the visible (audib

21、le) and what they suggest can kindle it into a single impact. of course, in literary works, symbols, unlike those in ordinary life, usually do not “stand for” any one meaning, nor for anything absolutely definite; they point, they hint, or, as henry james put it, they cast long shadows. symbolism th

22、e term symbolism refers to the use of symbols, or to a set of related symbols, which is one of the devices that enrich short fiction and compensate for its briefness in space. 2. there are two broad types of literary symbols symbol is generally acknowledged to be one of the most frequently employed

23、devices in poetry. in works of fiction it is no less frequent and no less important. the fact is that, when a reader reads a work of fiction, his focus is mostly cast upon the plot, the character, and the language used, so that the symbols are automatically backgrounded on the readers part. but in s

24、ome novels and stories, the symbolism looms so large that the reader will fail to get a comprehensive understanding of the work without paying special attention to the symbols. the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne is one of such works. the very title points to a double symbol: the scarlet lette

25、r a worn by hester conveys a multiple of senses which differ greatly from what it literally stands for, and the work eventually develops into a test and critique of symbols themselves. thomas pynchons v. continues along much the same line, testing an alphabetical symbol. another example is herman me

26、lvilles moby-dick, in which the huge white whale in the title of the book acquires greater meaning than the literal dictionary-definition of an aquatic mammal. it also suggests more than the devil, to whom some of the characters liken it. the huge whale, as the story unfolds, comes to imply an ampli

27、tude of meanings: among them the forces of nature and the whole universe. literary symbols are of two broad types: one type includes those embodying universal suggestions of meaning. flowing water suggests time and eternity, a journey into the underworld and return from it is interpreted as a spirit

28、ual experience or a dark night of the soul, and a kind of redemptive odyssey. such symbols are used widely (and sometimes unconsciously) in western literature. the other type of symbol secures its suggestiveness not from qualities inherent in itself but from the way in which it is used in a given wo

29、rk, in a special context. thus, in moby-dick the voyage, the land, and the ocean are objects pregnant with meanings that seem almost independent of the authors use of them in the story; on the other hand, the white whale is invested with different meanings for different crew members through the hand

30、ling of materials in the novel. similarly, in hemingways a farewell to arms, rain, which is generally regarded as a symbol of life (especially in spring), and which is a mildly annoying meteorological phenomenon in the opening chapter, is converted into a symbol of death through the uses to which it

31、 is put in the work. 3. symbols in fiction are inanimate objects often symbols we meet in fiction are inanimate objects. in william faulkers “a rose for emily,” miss emilys invisible but perceptible watch ticking at the end of a golden chain not only indicates the passage of time, but suggests that

32、time passes without even being noticed by the watchs owner. the golden chain to which it is attached carries suggestions of wealth and authority. other things may also function symbolically. in james joyces “araby,” the very name of the bazzar, arabythe poetic name for arabiasuggests magic, romance,

33、 and the arabian nights; its syllables, the narrator tells us, “cast an eastern enchantment over me.” even a locale, or a feature of physical topography, can provide rich symbolic suggestions. the caf in ernest hemingways “a clean, well-lighted place” is not merely a caf, but an island of refuge fro

34、m sleepless night, chaos, loneliness, old age, the meaninglessness of life, and impending death. in some novels and stories, some characters are symbolic. such characters usually appear briefly and remain slightly mysterious. in joseph cornards heart of darkness, a steamship company that hires men t

35、o work in congo maintains in its waiting room two women who knit black woolthey symbolize the classical fates. such a character is seen as a portrait rather than as a person, at least portrait like. faulkners miss emily, twice appears at a window of her houses “like the carven torso of an idol in th

36、e niche.” though faulkner invests her with life and vigor, he also clothes her in symbolic hints: she seems almost to personify the vanishing aristocracy of the south, still maintaining a black servant and being ruthless betrayed by a moneymaking yankee. sometimes a part of a characters body or an a

37、ttribute may convey symbolic meaning, for example, a baleful eye in edgar allan poes “the tell-tale heart.” 4. symbol used in works of fiction is the symbolic act another kind of symbol commonly employed in works of fiction is the symbolic act: an act or a gesture with larger significance than its l

38、iteral meaning. captain ahab in melvilles moby-dick deliberately snaps his tobacco pipe and throws it away before setting out in pursuit of the huge whale, a gesture suggesting that he is determined to take his revenge and will let nothing to distract him from it. another typical symbolic act is the

39、 burning of the barn by the boys father in faulkners “barn burning”: it is an act of no mere destroying a barn, but an expression of his profound spite and hatred towards that class of people who have driven his family out of his land. his hatred extends to anything he does not possess himself and,

40、beyond that, burning a barn reflects the fathers memories of the “waste and extravagance of war” and the “element of fire spoke to some deep mainspring” in his being. 5. a symbol is a trope in a broad literary sense, a symbol is a trope that combines a literal and sensuous quality with an necessary

41、or suggestive aspect. however, in literary criticism it is necessary to distinguish symbol from image, metaphor, and, especially, allegory. an image an image is a literal and concrete representation of a sensory experience or of an object that can be known by one or more of the senses. it is the mea

42、ns by which experience in its richness and emotional complexity is communicated. (holman and harmon, a handbook to literature, 1986) images may be literal or figurative, a literal image being one that involves no necessary change or extension in the obvious meaning of the words. prose works are usua

43、lly full of this kind of image. for example, novels and stories by conard and hemingway are noted for the evocative power of their literal images. a figurative image is one that involves a “turn” on the literary meaning of the words. for example, in the lines “it is a beauteous evening, calm and fre

44、e; /the holy time is quiet as a nun,” the second line is highly figurative while the first line evokes a literal image. we consider an image, whether literal or figurative, to have a concrete referent in the objective world and to function as image when it powerfully evokes that referent; whereas a

45、symbol functions like an image but differs from it in going beyond the evocation of the objective referent by making that referent suggest to the reader a meaning beyond itself. in other words, a sysmbol is an image that evokes an objective, concrete reality, but then that reality suggests another l

46、evel of meaning directly; it evokes an object that suggests the meaning, with the emphasis being laid on the latter part. as coleridge said, “it partakes of the reality which it renders intelligible. metaphor a metaphor is an implied analogy imaginatively identifying one object with another and ascr

47、ibing to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second, or investing the first with emotional or imaginative qualities associated with the second. it is not an uncommon literacy device in fiction, though it is more commonly used in poetry while simile is more commonly used in prose. a

48、metaphor emphasizes rich suggestiveness in the differences between the things compared and the recognition of surprising but unsuspected similarities. cleanth brooks uses the term “functional metaphor” to describe the way in which the metaphor is able to have “referential” and “emotive” characterist

49、ics, and to go beyond those characteristics to become a direct means in itself of representing a truth incommunicable by other means. when a metaphor performs this function, it is behaving as a symbol. but a symbol differs from a metaphor in that a metaphor evokes an object in order to illustrate an

50、 idea or demonstrate a quality, whereas a symbol embodies the idea or the quality. allegory an allegory is a story in which persons, places, actions, and things are equated with meanings that lie outside of the story itself. thus it represents one thing in the guise of anotheran abstraction in the f

51、orm of a concrete image. a clear example is the old arab fable of the frog and scorpion, who me one day on the bank of the nile, which they both wanted to cross. the frog offered to ferry the scorpion over on his back, provided the scorpion promised not to sting him. the scorpion agreed so long as t

52、he frog would promise not to drown him. the mutual promise exchanged, they crossed the river. on the far bank the scorpion stung the frog mortally. “why did you do that?” croaked the frog, as he lay dying. “why?” replied the scorpion. “were both arabs, arent we?” if we substitute for the frog a “mr.

53、 goodwill” and for the scorpion “mr. treachery” or “mr. two-face”, and we make the river any river, and for “were both arabs” we substitute “were both men,” we can make the fable into an allegory. in a simple allegory, characters and other ingredients often stand for other definite meanings, which a

54、re often abstractions. we have met such a character in the last chapter: faith in hawthornes “young goodman brown.” a classical allegory is the medieval play everyman, whose protagonist represents us all, and who, deserted by false friends named kinddred and goods, faces the judgment of god accompan

55、ied only by a faithful friend called good deeds. in john bunyans pilgrims progress, the protagonist, christian, struggles along the difficult road towards salvation, meeting along the way with such persons as mr. worldly wiseman, who directs him into a comfortable path (a wrong turn), and the reside

56、nt of a town called fair speech, among them a hypocrite named mr. facing-both-ways. one modern instance is george orwells animal farm, in which (among its double meanings) barnyard animals stand for human victims and totalitarian oppressors. allegory attempts to evoke a dual interest, one in the eve

57、nts, characters, and setting presented, and the other in the ideas they are intended to convey or the significance they bear. symbol differs from allegory, according to coleridge, in that in allegory the objective referent evokes is without value until it acquires fixed meaning from its own particul

58、ar structure of ideas, whereas a symbol includes permanent objective value, independent of the meanings that it may suggest. in a broad sense, all stories are symbolic, that is, the writer lends the characters and their actions some special significance. of course, this is to think of symbol in an e

59、xtremely broad and inclusive way. for the usual purpose of reading a story and understanding it, there is probably little point in looking for symbolism in every word, in every stick or stone, in every striking fo a match, in every minor character. but to refuse to think about the symbolic meanings

60、would be another way to misread a story. so to be on the alert for symbols when reading fiction is perhaps wiser than to ignore them. how, then, do we recognize a symbol in fiction when we meet it? fortunately, the storyteller often givens the symbol particular emphasis. it may be mentioned repeated