Readers are expected to engage with the story and have some input, by making inferences, connections, and interpretations. Readers and critics, on occasion go beyond the writer’s intentions, particularly in regard to implied symbolism. Much has been made of the symbolism in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, for example, and their interpretations, generally appear perfectly valid. And yet Hemingway himself said of the story, “The sea is the sea. The old man is the old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are sharks, no better or worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit.” Was he right in saying it was just a good story and they were just characters? Was he being disingenuous? Was he instinctively, subconsciously imagining and creating characters and events that were symbolic of greater realities of life? Beyond the character of the old man, Santiago, and his ordeal, there is the theme of man’s struggle with adversity. At another level, Santiago’s suffering is also described with imagery suggestive of crucifixion.
“Ay,” he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood. (p. 107)
He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast across his shoulder and looked at the road. (p. 122)
Hemingway, E. The Old Man and the Sea, Jonathan Cape, 1952, London
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I recall listening to Joy Cowley reading one of her short stories, which included a scene where a man was beating a horse that had fallen in the street. It brought to my mind the epithet, beating a dead horse, and I asked Joy if the incident had some symbolic meaning. She said, “I don’t think so,” which I thought was an interesting response, as it implied that might have been the case without her intending it or being consciously aware of it.
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In any case, symbolism should not simply be regarded as ‘one to one representation’, as in a heart represents love. Or Gretta Conroy’s boots in James Joyce’s The Dead representing the couple Gabriel and Gretta and Gabriel’s perception of their situation. We may take our cue from poetry in which symbols may represent very nuanced or ineffable feelings. The “faintly falling snow” at the end of The Dead symbolises Gabriel’s feeling of…of what exactly? The reader is left to ponder what feeling made “his soul swoon slowly.”