The Use of Symbolism to Foreshadow the Future in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour and Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

Symbols in literary works can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Symbols can appear in a novel as an event, action, or object. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author, Zora Neale Hurston, uses the symbols of the gate to show Janie’s transitions to womanhood, independence from oppression, and realization of what love is to Janie.

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” allows one to explore many ironic instances throughout the story, the main one in which a woman unpredictably feels free after her husband’s assumed death. Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s bizarre story to illustrate the struggles of reaching personal freedom and trying to be true to yourself to reach self-assertion while being a part of something else, like a marriage. In “The Story of an Hour” the main character, Mrs. Mallard, celebrates the death of her husband, yet Chopin uses several ironic situations and certain symbols to criticize the behavior of Mrs. Mallard during the time of her “loving” husband’s assumed death.

“So what’s special about rain? Ever since we crawled up on the land, the water, it seems to us, has been trying to reclaim us”. Rain symbolizes a lot of stuff. It symbolizes Fertility and Life. Rain is Clean which symbolizes a form of purification, baptism, removing sin or a stain. If the Rain is Restored it can bring a dying society back to life. Rain can also be destructive. It can causes pneumonia, colds, sickness, hurricanes, floods and other really dangerous stuff. Rain and Rainbows - God's promise never to destroy the world again brings hope; a promise of peace between heaven and earth. Snow which is also a type of water is used negatively. Snow creates cold and the cold can be really bad for people causing death, nothingness, inhospitable. Rain and snow are used so writers plot device, for atmospherics and to challenge characters.

This essay will focus on the short story by Kate Chopin and its use of symbols, setting and characters. Desiree’s baby was perhaps one of the best stories I’ve ever read. Analyzing it was not easy at all. Its use of symbols was very hard to comprehend. At first, it doesn’t make sense. But as you think critically, all the symbols, and setting and the characters in this literature plunge together in one amazing story.

Symbolism is used in many ways and writers use symbolism to “enhance their writing.” It can give their work “more richness and color and can make the meaning of the work deeper.” In literary work the actions of the characters, words, action, place, or event has a deeper meaning in the context of the whole story. The reader needs to look see the little things like a dove symbolizes peace, or like the red rose stands for romance. Mostly everything can have a symbolism meaning to it. For instance the flag symbolizes freedom and the stars represent the states. Even some signs are symbols like when a beaker has a skull with a bones placed like an ‘x’ behind it symbolizes that it’s toxic or bad. When people see the red light when driving that’s

In the short story called “Desiree’s Baby” written by Kate Chopin, the author used many different literary elements to describe and build up many characters. But two of the one that stands out the most was the foreshadowing and symbolism. These elements helped to build up Desiree Valmonde, one of the main character in the short story.

Symbolism is a prominent part of many short stories. Within the stories “The Smile”, “The Chrysanthemums”, and “The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas”, symbolism is heavily relied on to fully understand and comprehend each story. Although there are many literary devices used within the short stories, symbolism is predominantly used to develop and bring forth the message of each story.

Toni Cade Bambara wrote the short story, The Lesson, in 1972. The Lesson is considered by the Literary Canon to be a wonderful work of fiction because of its use of language, humanistic theme, symbolism, and non-genre plot. Two essential elements that add to the depth and enhance a reader?s comprehension of The Lesson are Bambara?s use of symbolism and theme.

Chopin's The Awakening is full of symbolism.  Rather than hit the reader on the head with blunt literalism, Chopin uses symbols to relay subtle ideas.  Within each narrative segment, Chopin provides a symbol that the reader must fully understand in order to appreciate the novel as a whole.  I will attempt to dissect some of the major symbols and give possible explanations as to their importance within the text.

Have you ever wondered what something meant, like the symbols of a story? Do you ever pay attention to it? You probably haven’t, but symbols are a good thing to look for in a book. The symbol helps you grasp the story more, helps make an understanding, and it can also help you predict the next action and more. Like in the stories: “Once Upon a Time” by Nacline Gordimer, “Night Calls” by Lisa Fugard, and “Quilt of a Country” by Anna Quindlen.

John Steinbeck’s 1949 novella entitled Of Mice and Men uses many significant symbols to convey meanings about the human condition. Such symbols include hands to represent labour, cards to signify chance and taking a risk, and finally, rabbits to suggest ideas about achieving one’s hopes and dreams. Symbols are a key central device in delivering meaning, as they consistently repeated throughout the narrative and are typically associated with the novella’s many characters.

Throughout the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin uses imagery and symbolism with several different objects to further the theme and plot. Since the use of symbolism helps bring depth to the story without focusing on too much detail, readers can acquire a more complex idea on what they believe the author tries to convey throughout the story. As Chopin executes an underlying message behind her signs, she also reveals new traits and meanings of her character, Mrs. Mallard. Despite Chopin’s use of several symbols to advance the storyline, the open window exemplifies not only Mrs. Mallard’s realization of her new-found freedom, but her hope and happiness as well.

Chopin also uses foreshadowing as a tool to describe to the reader what ?The Story of an Hour? truly represents. The most vivid example of foreshadowing is at the beginning of the story, where Chopin wrote, ?Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband?s death?(653). The reader is given a large clue that Mrs. Mallard has heart trouble which is a slight foreshadowing of her impending death at the end of the story. Chopin uses hints throughout the story that foreshadow upcoming events, but each hint is deceptive and often hard to comprehend at first sight, adding a bit of mystery to the story.

This essay will focus on the short story by Kate Chopin and its use of symbols, setting and characters. Desiree’s baby was perhaps one of the best stories I’ve ever read. Analyzing it was not easy at all. Its use of symbols was very hard to comprehend. At first, it doesn’t make sense. But as you think critically, all the symbols, and setting and the characters in this literature plunge together in one amazing story.

When writing a narrative, authors may be consistent with certain components in their composition. Authors seem to carry out corresponding elements of fiction or themes throughout their works and this can be revealed through analyzing them. The elements of fiction are plot, setting, character, symbol, and point of view. These factors aid in constructing the overall theme of a story. In the short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “The Storm”, both written by Kate Chopin, it is axiomatic that Chopin deliberately constructs similarities and differences in her stories’ elements of fiction and themes, which sets the stage for the narratives overall tone.