【正文】 cusing on the relationships between the visible (audible) 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 The 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 pensate 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 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 reader’s part. But in some novels and stories, the symbolism looms so large that the reader will fail to get a prehensive 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 letter 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 Pynchon’s V. continues along much the same line, testing an alphabetical symbol. Another example is Herman Melville’s MobyDick, in which the huge white whale in the title of the book acquires greater meaning than the literal dictionarydefinition 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, es to imply an amplitude 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 spiritual 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 work, in a special context. Thus, in MobyDick the voyage, the land, and the ocean are objects pregnant with meanings that seem almost independent of the author’s use of them in the story。 on the other hand, the white whale is invested with different meanings for different crew members through the handling of materials in the novel. Similarly, in Hemingway’s 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 is put in the work. 3. Symbols in fiction are inanimate objects Often symbols we meet in fiction are inanimate objects. In William Faulker’s “A Rose for Emily,” Miss Emily’s invisible but perceptible watch ticking at the end of a golden chain not only indicates the passage of time, but suggests that time passes without even being noticed by the watch’s owner. The golden chain to which it is attached carries suggestions of wealth and authority. Other things may also function symbolically. In James Joyce’s “Araby,” the very name of the bazzar, Araby—the poetic name for Arabia—suggests magic, romance, 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 caf233。 in Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, WellLighted Place” is not merely a caf233。, but an island of refuge from 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 Cornard’s Heart of Darkness, a steamship pany that hires men to work in Congo maintains in its waiting room two women who knit black wool—they symbolize the classical Fates. Such a character is seen as a portrait rather than as a person, at least portrait like. Faulkner’s Miss Emily, twice appears at a window of her houses “l(fā)ike the carven torso of an idol in the 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 character’s body or an attribute may convey symbolic meaning, for example, a baleful eye in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The TellTale Heart.” 4. Symbol used in works of fiction is the symbolic act Another kind of symbol monly employed in works of fiction is the symbolic act: an act or a gesture with larger significance than its literal meaning. Captain Ahab in Melville’s MobyDick 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 burning of the barn by the boy’s father in Faulkner’s “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, beyond that, burning a barn reflects the father’s 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