Symbol and Irony both provides a story a

Symbol and Irony (both provides a story ‘a compression’ • A literary symbol is something that carries more meaning than what it is. It may be in a form of an object, a situation, an action, or some other items in the story that suggests or represents other meanings. A cat in a rain could symbolise alienation, abandonment, neglect. Winter time could represents harshness, death… Pickle could symbolise sourness in life…

cont • Symbolic use of objects and actions ‘hand’ could represent hope in Hemingway ‘Umbrella’ may serve as a symbolic resonance of the usefulness of the ‘old lady’

Cont • Symbols reinforce and add to the meaning. (1 st) • It could also carry the meaning. (2 nd) • Example: At the train station---a juncture where one can change the direction of one’s life.

cont • The story itself must furnish a clue that a detail is to be taken symbolically. (Symbols nearly always signal their existence by emphasis, repetition or position) • The meaning of the symbol must be established and supported by the entire context of the story (the meaning is in the story, not outside it) • To be called symbol, an item must suggest a meaning different in kind from its literal meaning (Vera unbottons her coat). • A symbol may have more than just one meaning (It may suggest a cluster of meanings).

Irony • Is a term with a range of meanings. • It involves some sort of discrepancy or incongruity. • It is a contrast in which one term of the contrast in some way mocks the other term.

cont • Irony suggests the complexity of experience, to furnish indirectly an evaluation of the material and at the same time to achieve compression • Verbal irony—a figure of speech in which the opposite is said from what is intended. • Dramatic irony—is a contrast between what the character says and what the reader knows to be true. • Irony of situation-the discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between expectation and fulfillment (contrast generates meaning).