Throughout Elizabeth Winthrop’s short story, “The Golden Darters,” are symbols of how Emily, the main character, is growing up. The most obvious symbols are Emily piercing her ears, her father’s table where he works on the flies, and the golden darters.
A symbol of Emily growing up is the fact that she pierced her ears, even after her parents forbid it, telling her she had to wait until she was seventeen. This shows defiance toward her parents, but also shows her becoming more dependent and able to make decisions on her own.
Emily’s father’s workstation, or table, where he made the flies symbolizes the world her father was in. It was in a secluded corner of the house, isolated from much contact with anyone but her father. Her father was trying to keep Emily like the table in a way, wanting to isolate her from the world of “boys” and everything else that comes with growing up.
Another symbol of Emily growing up were the golden darters, or streamers, which were the first fishing lures that Emily and her father made together. He described them as “a big flashy fly.” After Emily gets her ears pierced, she uses the golden darters to make herself look “flashier.” The purpose of the lures was to attract fish, but Emily was using them to attract members of the opposite sex. What was meant to be a typical fishing lure is now becoming a sexual lure. Twelve-year-old Emily is obviously trying to grow up, but her father is not ready for that yet. When she shows the new earrings to her father, he is not pleased with what he sees. He is not ready for his daughter to become a woman, yet there she is, standing in front of him, looking like one. It seems as though he is angry that she used the lures the way she did, but he really doesn’t know how else to express his feelings. When he says, “that is not the purpose for which the flies were intended,” he meant just that; the flies were not meant to be anything more than fishing lures.
We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn 't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.’ (25) This complete sheltering leaves Emily to play into with in her own deprived reality within her own mind, creating a skewed perception of reality and relationships”(A Plastic Rose,
As Faulkner wrote, the way the town saw Emily and her father being a tableau, “none of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door” (Faulkner). In this quote Emily’s father is showing how overprotective he is of his daughter; Faulkner even created the imagery of the father clutching the horsewhip in his hand and standing in front of the door allowing no one in and not letting virgin Emily, dressed in white, out. The horsewhip can symbolize the stern maybe harsh disciplinary personality Emily’s father had towards her and in everyone’s eyes, causing the town to have pity over Emily. Emily’s white dress embodies the innocence and purity maybe even the naïve-ness Emily portrays. Emily’s father is a symbol
In the novel Lord of the Flies William Golding uses many forms of symbolism to point out the underlying conflicts in their society. By using these symbols he makes the reader not only think about the problems that arise in the book, but also hints towards problems in our society today. The story uses the conch, fire, and the glasses to reference other meanings in the story. These symbols play a crucial part in the story in which they provide the reader with information that isn’t directly stated but is inferred.
William Golding is essentially the king of symbolism and covert delineation. The Lord of the Flies is a novel based around a large handful of English schoolboys becoming stranded on an island that will later become a sadistic dystopia. The boys are left unsupervised with only their ill experienced wits to survive and rule. A power struggle breaks out between two of the main characters, Jack and Ralph, Jack being the antagonist and Ralph being the protagonist of the story. In modern pop culture, Jack and Ralph would compare to an event like North Korea versus South Korea. Lord of the Flies is home to many forms of symbolism, including the importance of Piggy 's glasses, the fire on the island, the sow 's head, the beast and the conch shell; all of these items play a huge role in shaping the story, tone and the mood.
In his literary work, A Long Way Gone:Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishamael Beah uses symbols to underscore his central theme of oppression and/or freedom.
Having to send Emily in her early days to live with her father was a burdensome nuisance. All of Emily's father's attributes were rubbing off on her, "all of the baby loveliness gone," (p.
In the story of Beloved, Toni Morrison conveys many examples of symbolism to provide greater details about the connection between characters and their state of mind. Objects such as milk, colors such as red, and even characters such as Beloved play a crucial role in establishing a theme of self-forgiveness and rebirth, and give a more in depth description on the suffering and torture that the various characters endured throughout the novel.
In a “Rose for Emily”, Faulkner uses Emily’s house as a symbol of the barrier Emily forms between herself and society. As society moves through generations and changes over the years, Emily remains the same, within the borders of her own household. The house is described as “in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street”(125), but years passed and more modern houses had “obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood” (125). Faulkner set the house apart from the rest of the neighborhood, and Emily is described in the beginning as “a fallen monument” and a “tradition” indicating that she had not changed in an extended amount of time. The symbol of the house, remaining unchanged through the decades that passed becomes stronger when Emily does not permit tax collectors to pass through the threshold of the house, “She vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before”. Emily’s image of a “monument” to the community’s small society caused her to become exempt from the demands of the state that the rest of the population had to adhere to. Emily’s house enab...
In the Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses a variety of symbols to represent ideas, or abstract notions or conceptions about people, places, and things. A symbol, according to the Webster's Dictionary, is an object that stands for something in addition to its literal meaning. In the book, there is a continual breakdown of society and civilization on the island. During this breakdown, Golding uses symbolism to further explain the process. Some of the things he symbolizes in the novel are the island itself, the conch, the boys clothing, and the violence.
As time goes on Emily grows up, her mother criticizes and blames herself for the distance between the relationships. It is causing tension in their already rocky relationship. The mother is obviously suffering from guilt on how Emily was raised and the unpleasant memories of the past. Emily was also suffering. We see her shyness towards those who care for her. She was a very depressed teen. She had quietness in her daily duties, and her feelings of not being good enough towards herself. She always felt that she was extremely ugly and not smart compared to her younger sister, Susan. She thought she was perfect. She was the typical “Shirley Temple” image.
As time went on pieces from Emily started to drift away and also the home that she confined herself to. The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily, although she never hears it. She was slightly aware of the faint whispers that began when her presence was near. Gossip and whispers may have been the cause of her hideous behavior. The town couldn’t wait to pity Ms. Emily because of the way she looked down on people because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she never thought she would be alone the way her father left her.
Imagine a group of young boys who have just crash-landed on a deserted tropical island with no adults or supervision. William Golding showed in his ground breaking novel Lord of the Flies, what may happen in just those circumstances. In his very complicated and diverse novel Golding brings out many ideas and uses many literary devices. Above all others though comes symbolism of three main important objects being the conch, fire, and "Piggy's" eyeglasses. Through each of these three symbols Golding shows how the boys adapt and change throughout the novel. These symbols also help to show each of the boy's ideals on a variety of elements from human nature to society and its controls. All three of these symbols also change and are one of the most important elements of the story.
Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...
Emily father was highly favored in the town. Faulkner writes in his Short Story Criticism, “The Griersons have always been “high and mighty,” somehow above “the gross, teeming world….” Emily’s father was well respected and occasionally loaned the town money. That made her a wealthy child and she basically had everything a child wanted. Emily’s father was a very serious man and Emily’s mind was violated by her father’s strict mentality. After Emily’s father being the only man in her life, he dies and she find it hard to let go of him. Because of her father, she possessed a stubborn outlook on life and how thing should be. She practically secluded her self from society for the remainder of her life.
Miss Emily’s isolation is able to benefit her as well. She has the entire town believing she is a frail and weak woman, but she is very strong indeed. Everyone is convinced that she could not even hurt a fly, but instead she is capable a horrible crime, murder. Miss Emily’s actions range from eccentric to absurd. After the death of her father, and the estrangement from the Yankee, Homer Barron, she becomes reclusive and introverted. The reader can find that Miss Emily did what was necessary to keep her secret from the town. “Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years” (247).