The Symbolism of Water

Many authors use symbolism to help their readers grasp the concepts they are trying to convey. They take concrete items or ideas to represent something abstract.

He uses each conflict that Odysseus must resolve during his voyage to signify each emotional phase the hero also experiences. For example, at the beginning of Odysseus’ journey, Homer describes Calypso’s island to be filled with beauty, but surrounded by deadly waves of the sea (Homer 451). The beauty of the island symbolizes the bravery that Odysseus still has, and his perseverance during the many years he has been held prisoner. The deadly waves symbolize the emotional disarray he is in at the time, for he misses his home and family. The abundance of waves outnumbers the volume of beauty, and can be interpreted as Odysseus being more sorrowful than brave. But alas, he finally sets out to return to Ithaca. In addition, he eventually ends up in the cave of Polyphemus; the inside is dark, but the outside is filled with nice farmland (Homer 459). The darkness of the symbolizes death, despair, and imprisonment since Odysseus feels these after four of his comrades are brutally killed and eaten by the cyclops. The farmland outside the cave represents life and freedom since farming produces necessities for life and for Odysseus to reach the outside again is for him to be free and embrace life once more. The darkness of the cave is within the life of the farmland, symbolizing how Odysseus really cherishes his life and the opportunity to return home, but he still feels deep inside the death and despair of his late comrades. Eventually, he returns home to Ithaca. Furthermore, after restoring order to his kingdom, he goes to visit his father Laertes in his wide, open vineyard in the countryside (Homer 484). The wide openness of the vineyard represents the freedom that Odysseus finally achieves and genuinely feels after his long journey to return home. Also, vineyards produce life, which

Rivers provide life in the most desolate of places. They bring the frigid, sky-fallen rain from the frozen mountain lakes to the sunbathed ocean, and give life and sustenance to every ecosystem and civilization on their path. However, in Bless Me, Ultima, the river is a symbol for the experience of life, more than just breathing and moving. Antonio’s river is his life, and it flows through his story just as his life does.

Fire Overcome Water Good people defeat evil people right? Or do people let the evil devour them. When good people are introduced to cruel treatment, do they hold on to their hope or do they let the wrong change them? In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie struggles to keep faith and hope on the journey of the holocaust.

In The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, the river, and water in general, is a symbol for depression and sadness. Lindo explains how her mother would make her feel less, right after eating a “rice bowl”(51). She starts to cry, and her mental condition worsens after eating rice, presumably containing water. The river is the main source of her problems, and it “liked to swallow little children”, just as depression swallows you, and takes control of your life (52). Lindo faced similar experiences when the river flooded her home.

When Cyclops set a curse on Odysseus, it set the course for the rest of the story. Cyclops asked his father, Poseidon, to make Odysseus’s journey home long and torturous, because Odysseus put out the Cyclops’s eye. The Cyclops prayed to his father, Poseidon, “He shall see his roof again among his family in his father land, far be that day, and dark the years between. Let him lose all companions, and return under strange sail to bitter days at home.” For the next six chapters, Odysseus fights the elements, losses all of the men in his company, and returns home to witness scores of suitors eating his food, living in his home, and attempting to marry his wife. The

The sea is the biggest archetype found in the Odyssey; it represents a man’s life, and this is used to show how pride brings destruction. “[Athena] I am anxious about him, poor fellow, kept from his friends… in that island covered with trees, and nothing but the waves all round it, in the very middle of the sea!” (Homer p.g. 12); the waves represent the struggles found on the life of a person, in this case Odysseus, problems caused by his pride after letting his companions “outrageously [kill the cattle of Helios]” (Homer p.g. 146), thinking himself superior than the gods by allowing his companions to defy a direct order of a god, Helios. ”Then I [Odysseus] went away along the island in order to pray to the gods, if any of them might show me some course to sail on” (Homer p.g. 135), after praying to the gods, Odysseus gets a clear course to follow on the sea, after the gods clear the sea of waves, which are a representation of a man’s problems, showing once again how honoring the gods takes away any misfortune brought by

The revelation or the abyss of the hero’s journey can be described in the Odyssey as Odysseus going to the underworld known as Hades. Odysseus went there because Circe instructed him to do so. It was there Tiresias, which is a blind prophet tells Odysseus that he will return home. He also tells him he will reunite with his wife and take command of his kingdom from suitors. He then instructs Odysseus that he need to take a trip to a faraway land to appease the god Poseidon. After revealing this prophecy he warns Odysseus not to touch the flocks of the sun when he arrives in Thrinacia. If he does he will encounter much more hardship and suffering and he will also lose more members of his crew

One object could have a million different meanings depending on the perspective of a person and their views on the subject. The Scarlet Letter includes many instances of symbolism. One of the many symbols represented in The Scarlet Letter is water. Water is more than just a liquid. It reflects and reveals.

Water.  It expresses its’ power in the form of hurricanes and flash floods.  It displays its gentleness, washing dirt off a child's scabbed knee.  Water has been used to quench the thirst of many longing throats; and it has been the cause of death to those who unfavorably crossed its path.  It possesses the power of total destruction, yet it holds the bases of all life.  Generally, water has symbolized cleanliness and renewal.  In the Bible, water was used in Baptism, cleansing the soul of original sin and offering a new life in the light of God.  Water in itself is a natural purifier, washing the dirt from our bodies. Water is a symbol of

What do symbols illustrate in novels? In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, symbols are illustrated through people, objects, and colors. In this novel, a group of children are faced with the difficulty of living isolated from society after their plane crashes on a deserted island. With no formal civilization, parents, or rules, the kids have the freedom to do as they choose. Throughout the novel, the boys find and use objects on the island that symbolize something of different importance. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses different objects to symbolize the difference between civilization and savagery.

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, is a story about love and war. Frederic Henry, a young American, works as an ambulance driver for the Italian army in World War I. He falls tragically in love with a beautiful English nurse, Miss Catherine Barkley. This tragedy is reflected by water. Throughout the novel Ernest Hemingway uses water as metaphors. Rivers are used as symbols of rebirth and escape and rain as tragedy and disaster, which show how water plays an important role in the story.

Symbolism is when the author uses an object or reference to add deeper meaning to a story. There are hundreds of different symbols authors and poets use and even more ways for them to use each symbol. If you think about it anything really can be a symbol if the author wants it to be. There are some basic things to know about symbolism such as that the night often represents death and the morning usually represents the start of life, another big one to remember is that usually a storm is meaning that there is a conflict. There can be things as Broad as the sky or things as small as a cell used as a symbol. They enhance the theme, ideas, or characters in a story to make it interesting or help prove a point or

This symbol has been used in many stories including Kate Chopin's “The Awakening” where she uses water as a symbol of finding freedom and being awoken. Water as a symbol has a deeper meaning of finding oneself and being free. It is not just water, it guides characters and inspires them to either make a change or it sets them free from their worries. Being that Desiree was troubled by the new weight put upon her by the assumption of her husband, she feels as if she cannot live being so unhappy. The Bayou which is an area of water being semi-swamp like can be seen as a place of freedom for Desiree. Since she chose not to take the road to her mothers and instead took the less traveled path, it can be inferred that she wanted to be set free and thought she would never be free even after she left her husband's plantation. This plays into leading the reader to infer that Desiree has killed herself and her child. Kate Chopin also expresses the symbol of clothing by dressing Desiree in pure white, characterizing her as pure and someone who can do no wrong. The dress of Desiree plays into the foreshadowing that she is not the one to blame. White is seen as a color of purity. Desiree is described as wearing “soft white muslins and laces,” both playing into purity and femininity (Chopin 329).

     Poets have often used symbols to convey deeper messages that they were either too afraid or felt that normal language lacked the power to express. Often when a symbol is used, the reader digs deeper into the issue more than if the message was simply shot out in the open. These symbols and metaphors can be used to portray beautiful things, or could be used to create a more compelling argument in a more subtle way.