For example, stories filled with adventure or romance often take place in exotic locales. A person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance. Symbols are educational devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort to painstaking explanations that would make a story more like an essay than an experience. Conventional symbols have meanings that are widely recognized by a society or culture. Some conventional symbols are the Christian cross, the Star of David, a swastika, or a nation's flag.
Writers use conventional symbols to reinforce meanings.
A literary or contextual symbol can be a setting, character, action, object, name, or anything else in a work that maintains its literal significance while suggesting other meanings. For example, the white whale in Melville's Moby-Dick takes on multiple symbolic meanings in the work, but these meanings do not automatically carry over into other stories about whales. See also allegory. Review guidelines and advice on Writing about Literature , with particular attention to Analyzing Fiction . If you're having trouble coming up with a critical approach, send me an e-mail explaining your confusions or concerns, and I'll try to help you focus your approach.