Symbolism—Day 10

Special thanks for the comments regarding symbolism in “The Other Open Door.” Sometimes it seems easier to discuss an example than to stay in the realm of the hypothetical.

Stuart Stockton pointed out that in writing the story, I tipped my hand about the presence of symbols with the “open door” extended metaphor introduced in the title and repeated off and on throughout. I agree.

I think “metaphor” is probably the better term for that particular element. According to Rebecca McClanahan in Word Painting, symbols are first the actual, physical thing that fulfills a need in the story. As I recall (I haven’t reread the story recently), there isn’t an actual open door.

The concept of an open door suggesting an opportunity is not uniquely the property of Christianity. I liked the image because Jesus does call Himself the door (John 10:7), so that made it sort of a double-use image.

I did NOT like it because I thought it might almost be cliché. I’ve heard the repeated saying, “When God closes a door, He always opens a window” or something similar, and thought it just might be overused.

As to the handwashing, that was a real symbol, something that arose from the story, not something I planned. I thought it worked well as foreshadowing and as a visual image of the spiritual event.

The other two were somewhat intentional, but again not planned before I started the actual writing. First a short history.

Some time ago, Dave Long, editor at Bethany, offered one of his novels for analysis at Faith in Fiction. In that discussion, there was a conversation about symbols and the need to make them particular to the individual character. From Mark Bertrand:

Symbolism arrives at the universal through the particular, and the challenge with using symbols that are not your own but belong to a community (and in this case are God’s) is that you have to do justice to them while at the same time making them your own.

So, in my short story, I made an effort to include particular symbols that belonged to the characters.

One had to do with how the brother treats the people in his life. The symbol is the banana peel:

He stripped the peel from the banana, then started in on her argument.

The other, also designed to reinforce the relationship between the siblings, is the wagon. This one is more obscure. Unless you’ve been the young one sitting in a wagon and had an older sibling pull you along, you could easily miss it:

Beth crossed the room to the sink, shifting her gaze out the window to the red wagon under the drooping pepper tree in her back yard. Darnel did know her. She was the one who had given him his first drink, who provided him with a fake ID when he was sixteen, and set him up with the first girl he slept with. She’d lived fast and loose and pulled her little brother right along behind …

Beth leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. What Darnel didn’t say was that he had no intention of letting his sister lead him away from the very things he hated her for dragging him into.

I’ll add a few closing comments next time.