Symbolism—Day 2

Announcements first. In the Better Late than Never category, we have some of our fantasy tour bloggers who came in with late posts about DragonKnight, most notably Matt Mikalatos at his blog (which he also uses for cute daughter pictures, stories, and even a song. Such a proud papa 🙂 ). I always appreciate those who join the tour and link to the rest of us. It’s part of the ongoing process of raising the visibility of Christian Fantasy and even a late post can keep the buzz going on whatever project we’re highlighting.

Which brings me to the next announcement. In the month of July, our Christian Fantasy Blog Tour will take us to the web site of a longtime fantasy proponent—Christian Fandom. And this month the tour will be led by Shannon McNear. Dates still to be announced.

On to our present topic, symbolism.

I want to think a bit about transparent symbols. First, let me mention that if a story uses symbolism, that does not meant it is allegorical. Quoting Rebecca McClanahan in Word Painting again:

Allegory is a story or description where each element—each person, place, thing and idea—is metaphorical. In addition to providing one-on-one correspondences, the elements “add up” to something greater than the sum of their parts, some overriding idea or message.

Such a work makes no attempt to hide the point of the story. In my opinion few people can write really good allegory. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is perhaps the most famous and the best example.

Bunyan’s main character, Christian, is on a journey, which he begins at the urging of Evangelist, from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. On his way, he bogs down in the Slough of Dispond, meets friends Faithful and Hopeful, travels the King’s Highway past places like the Hill Difficulty and Vanity, and so on. At one point he is captured by the Giant Despair and taken to Doubting Castle. You get the picture. There is never a question what Bunyan is saying underneath his story because the meaning can hardly be said to have stayed underneath.

Few people that I know relish an allegory. I’m not sure why that is, but I would have to count myself in that category, though once I began reading Pilgrim’s Progress I was plesantly surprised by how entertaining the story was.

When an author uses symbolism that is transparent, I think the story borders on allegory. Transparent symbolism would be the use of an obvious symbol that the average reader would immediately understand at the abstract level. The cross is an obvious symbol, for example.

Is the use of transparent symbolism good? bad? Neither, in my point of view, just as allegory as a kind of story is neither good nor bad. It is by the execution of the device, not in its inclusion, that a story should be judged.

But there is the added point about writing to a target audience. Does the target audience appreciate or even anticipate allegory or transparent symbolism?

Here the issue is, does the work meet the expectation. If a reader does not expect transparent symbolism, and a story comes loaded with it, the reader is apt to feel duped, as if the story was a lure to bring the reader in, only to have the author deliver a truckload of message.

Obviously stories that do not utilize symbolism can fall into the same trap, but ones that rely on symbols to indicate a larger truth are most open to this predicament.

I think more so for Christians writing in a Christianized culture.

I’ll explore that idea more next time.