Symbolism plays a major role in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's "Clothes," Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal," and in Colette's "The Hand." In "Clothes," the narrator is a woman in India from a traditional Bengali family. Her parents go through a lot of trouble to arrange a good marriage for her, to an Indian man who now lives in the United States. The husband-to-be flies all the way to India to meet the narrator, who dresses for her bride viewing. What she wears and how she dresses become powerful symbols of cultural and personal identity, also representing specific stages of life. In "The Hand," the narrator is a woman who was recently married to someone she barely knows, as if it were an arranged marriage. While she is in bed as her husband sleeps, the narrator contemplates her life. Her thoughts shift to issues related to gender roles through the symbolism of her husband's hand. In "Battle Royal," the narrator is an African-American man who contends with racism. The titular battle symbolizes the battle for social justice and the struggle to find a strong personal identity within a hostile society. Each of these three narratives uses symbolism to expose issues and themes related to power, culture, and identity. In "Clothes," which is a chapter in a novel called Arranged Marriage, the imagery of clothing is related to gender, personal identity, and culture. The narrator describes her saris, and later her western style clothing, in terms of what is going in her life....
At first, her parents make her marketable for marriage by giving her "the most expensive sari I had ever seen, and surely the most beautiful," (Banerjee Divakaruni 1). Wearing this sari, the narrator knew that she would be chosen to be the man's wife. It was, as she puts it, "a sari that could change one's life," (Banerjee Divakaruni 2). Clothes are also used internally in the story as a metaphor. For example, the narrator states, "the syllables rustle uneasily in my mouth like a stiff satin that's never been worn," (Divakaruni 3). Then, the narrator realizes the importance of clothes to personal identity and culture. She envisions the saris in the suitcases because they remind her of home. Later, she wears jeans and t-shirts in secret with her new husband because they are the markings of her new identity as an American woman. At the end of the story, as she wears a white sari to symbolize death, the narrator also knows that she has made the transition from a traditional life as subservient wife to a new life as a self-empowered individual. Clothes symbolize that transition.
Symbolism in the Hairy Ape The Hairy Ape is an expressionist play by Eugene O'Neill and was produced and published in 1922. It is a symbolic work that deals with the themes of social alienation and search for identity in the presence of technological progress (Cardullo 258). The play speaks to the industrialization that was taking place during that era. In an expressionistic play, the number of characters is kept minimal
The broken unicorn is the concrete image of their broken relationship - everything that Laura pins her hopes on but nothing in reality. Laura cannot recognize that she is special; she has the ability to make other people feel better. She tells Jim after he breaks the little figure, "It doesn't matter. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise" (Williams 1014). Her scene with Jim ends in a hopeful kiss
It is only with this understanding that the needless sacrifice can end. Shirley Jackson presents a myriad of symbols in "The Lottery." The title of the story, the procedure of the lottery, the names of the characters, and the people that participate in the lottery and those that do not are all symbols or can be interpreted as such. These symbols also indicate different views of sacrifice. Sacrifice is present in
Other characters serve as more direct and specific symbols in the story. Mrs. Mercer, the guest of the narrator's aunt on the evening that the narrator finally manages to get to the bazaar, is one such character. She, like the narrator, has been waiting for the narrator's uncle to return, and both expected him much earlier than he eventually appears. Mrs. Mercer, in fact -- a "garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's
In a metaphorical way, this image is transposed on the image of the woman "showing her teeth." She responds with the symbolic implications that she too is living in a sate of fear and resentment. The reality that Elisa aspires to is again conveyed through the imagery and symbolic of a longing for a better existence. This can be seen when she whispers, "That's a bright direction. There's a glowing
All of this was represented in the figure of Daisy Miller. On the other hand, James also perceived this American entity as being and ugly American' who was uncultured, crude, ego-centered, and grasping. Randolph, Daisy's younger broth, perfectly epitomizes this other allusion. Other symbolisms appear in the Coliseum where the place itself is symbolic of the ruins of a decadent empire -- again the symbolism of a meaningless, drift less
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