Symbolism in My Stories

Symbolism is the use of words or images to represent specific ideas or characters in stories. We can use symbols to communicate an overall theme of what you are trying to convey in the story or small gestures that can help a writer give meaning to a character or place within a story.

I don’t worry too much about symbolism at the beginning and just get the story down. I find that little ideas of symbolism occur to you as you edit. This can be a really fun part of the editing process. At the end of editing and re-editing the many drafts of your story any symbolism that you have inserted can seem flawless within the story.

“David wakes up wet and cold on a beach. Waves lap gently on the shore. A large sun sits low along the beach; pale winter yellow, a scab that dominates the sky.”

The Divine Life; In the Middle of the Journey of our Life, A.J FitzRoy

In my own stories I often use clothes as symbolic items. In Savage Beauty, Rosie’s old itchy jumper she brings with her from home on her travels is a symbolism of her past self. In Tel Aviv she takes off the jumper when it becomes too hot and itchy. She has begun to shed her old self on her journey.

“The office was very high up, Rosie could see people rushing past the building on the busy side street beneath her, and yet she felt disconnected from the streets below. Arnold was talking to her in his low, monotonous voice. Her old fluffy cardigan felt itchy and too tight in this heat. She dragged it off and turned back to the sun and warmth shining through the thick window pane.”

Savage Beauty, A.J FitzRoy

Rosie’s boyfriend Arnold, that she had started her journey with, gives her back the jumper from home she had lost. Later, when she leaves Tel Aviv on her own she discards the old jumper because it no longer fits into the new person she is becoming.

“Arnold took out a pink and cream jumper from his bag. ‘You left this behind at the caravan,’ he said. Rosie felt the scratchy fluffy material. She had not missed it, had no idea that she had even left it behind. It had been far too muggy to wear anything like it in the heat of the city.”

Savage Beauty, A.J FitzRoy

In the novella I am writing at the moment, The Divine Life, David’s grey suit, a symbol of his careful maticulisnm and material possessions becomes soiled by his experiences. He slowly discards the tie and then the suit jacket on his journey as a symbolic gesture of learning and discarding parts of his old self.

The themes of light and time used in my novella are a nod to the themes in Dante’s, The Divine Comedy that the story is inspired from. By using these themes it gives my story a consistency of meaning and symbolism relevant to the Divine Comedy. If you have read The Divine Comedy you will understand the symbolism in my own story, but I also wanted my story to stand on its own, so that if you haven’t read the Divine Comedy you can still enjoy my novella.

“David stands at the entrance to an unfamiliar room. The warm light has gone, in its place there’s a cold harsh light emanating from the narrow doorway in front of him. The hallway where he is standing is dim, a fluorescent light above him flickers on and off.”

The Divine Life: Empyrean, A.J FitzRoy

There are overarching themes in my stories that are often developed after I have written the first edition. In my novel, Savage Beauty the theme of windows is often used as a symbol of the character’s feeling of being an outsider, of looking out at the world rather than participating in it. At the last chapter a neighbour looks through her window at Rosie as a complete change of POV. The use of windows as a theme did not occur until many drafts of editing, but once I had seen this in my own writing it just seemed to fit perfectly and I enhanced that theme when I went back over the story.