【正文】 t uali st ic act s are symboli c. In chur ch weddi ng t he bri de i s handed over f rom t he f at her to the groom. Holy eat ing is symbolic of muni on, baptizing cleansi ng and rebi rt h. The r ai si ng and lower ing of a nat ional flag cer tainly suggest meani ngs larger t han t he acts themselves. And f inal ly toasti ng and shaki ng hands on f or mal or informal occasions. As r hetori cal device, symbol is dif ferent f rom metaphor, whi ch i s lit er al ly f al se but fi gur at ivel y true. Unli ke al egory, which repr esent s abst ract terms l ike “l(fā) ove” or “t ruth,” symbols are per ceptible object s. In l iterature almost anythi ng—par ti cular objects, characters, set ting, and acti ons—can be symboli c if the aut hor wishes to make i t so by eit her hi nting or i nsisti ng t hat the mat er ial means more than it lit er al ly does. Symbols are suggested through special t reat ment such as imager y, repet it on, connotati ve l anguage, or other art istic devi ces. In F. Scot t Fi tzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, a huge pai r of bespectacl ed eyes st ar es acr oss a wil dnes of ash heaps fr om a bi lboar d adver ti sing the ser vi ces of an oculist. Repeat edly appear ing in t he story, t he bespectacled eyes e t o mean more t han si mpl y the availabili ty of eye examinat ion. A character i n the st or y par es it t o the eyes of God。t ypes of sent ence ar e used, what is thei r functi on? Sentence plexity: Do sent ences on whole have a simple or a pl ex str ucture? What i s t he aver age sentence length? Does plexity vary stri kingl y from one sentence to another? Is pl exit y mai nl y due to ( i) coordination, ( i) subordination, ( i ) juxt aposit ion of clauses or of other equi valent str uctures? I n what par ts of t he t ext does pl exit y tend t o occur ? clause t ypes: What types of clauses ar e favored—r elati ve clauses, adver bial clauses, or dif ferent types of nominal clauses? Are non fi ni te for ms monly used, and if so, of what ypes are t hey (i nf init ive, i ng f orm, ed form, ver bl ess st ruct ur e) ? What is t heir funct ion? Cl ause str ucture: Is there anything si gni ficant about clause el ements (eg fr equency of obj ects, adver bi al s, plements。 he hints t hat some sad, pasionate spi ri t i s br ooding as i t watches the passi ng processi on of humani ty. Such an obj ect i s a symbol : in li terature, a symbol is a thing that r ef er s or suggests more than its li teral meani ng. There are quite a l ot of symbols that appear i n or di nar y lif e, for the use of symbol is by no means of l imi ted to li terature and art . For instance, a dove i s a symbol of peace, the fl ag i s the symbol of a countr y, and the cross i s t he symbol of the Christi an r el igion. These ar e symbols adopted by a whole society and are r ecognized by al members of such a society. There are other kinds of symbol s, such as f igur e 3, which may be abstract symbols. But symbol s i n lit er at ure works ar e dif ferent f rom eit her of the other t ypes . Gener al ly speaki ng, a lit er ar y symbol does not have a mon soci al aceptance, as does the fl ag。 i ts syll ables, the nar rator tels us, “cast an Eastern enchantment over me. ” Even a locale, or a feature of physical t opogr aphy, can provi de r ich symbol ic suggestions. The caf233。 f or i nstance, t he ways sent ences ar e connected. Thi s is the internal ani zation of a t ext. Under context, roughly the material, ment al , personal, interact ional, social, inst ituti onal, cult ur al , and hi st or ical situation in which the discour se i s m ade, we consi der the external r el at ions of the lit er ar y text or a part of t he t ext, seing it as a discourse pr esupposing a social r el at ion between its par ti ci pants (author and r eader , characte r and charact er , character and reader, et c.) , and a sharing of knowl edge and asumpti ons by part icipants. Cohesion: Does t he t ext cont ai n l ogical or ot her links between sent ences (eg coordinating conjunct ions, l inking adver bi al s) , or does i t end to r epl y on i mpl icit connect ions of meaning? What sort of use i s made of cross reference by pr onouns (she, it, they, etc), by substi ut e forms ( do, so, etc) , or el lipsis? I s ther e any use made of el egant var iation—the avoidance of r epet it on by substi ut ion of a descr ipti ve phrase ( as “the ol d lawyer” substi ut es f or the repet it on of an earli er “Mr Jones”) ? Are meaning connections reinforced by repet it on of words and phr ases, or by repeat edly using wor ds f rom t he same semantic f ield? Context: Does the writ er addr ess the r eader dir ectl y, or t hr ough the wor ds or thought s of some f ictional character ? What li nguistic clues ( eg f ir st per son pr onouns I , me, my, mine) are t here of the addreser addressee relationship? What ati tude does t he aut hor imply t owards his/ her subject ? If a charact er ’s wor ds or thoughts ar e repr esent ed, is this done by di rect quotati on, or by some other method ( eg i ndir ect speech, f ree indi rect speech)? Are t here signi fi cant changes of style wit h respect to dif ferent per sons (nar rator or char acter) who is supposedly speaki ng or thinking the wor ds on the page? What i s the point of view of the story? Are t he f requent shi fts of point vi ew? I f so, i n whose voice is the nar rator speaking? Chapt er Seven Symbol What is sym bol? Symbol, in t he simplest sense, anything that stands for or r epresents something el se beyond it—usual y an i dea conventional ly asociated wit h it. Object s l ike fl ags and crosses can f unction symbolicaly。 they point, they hint, or, as Henr y James put i t, they cast long shadows. Symbol ism The t er m symbolism r ef er s to the use of symbols, or t o a set of related symbol s, whi ch i s one of t he devi ces that enr ich shor t ficti on and pensate f