The open letter series will be a collection of open letters written to other people, ideas or activities that have taken place over the course of the last few days of uploading in both the public realm and in my personal life. What exactly is an open letter? An open letter is a letter which is often critical in nature that is addressed to a particular person or group of people but intended for publication or to be read by a large group of people. In this case, that is you, the reader.

Each open letter will discuss a different topic, in varying degrees of depth. From politics to personal issues, the Open Letter series aims to provide clarity on issues, create ideas or inspiration, or, in my case, to become a place of stress and thought relief. Nothing is safe from receiving an open letter, not telly shows or book characters, a class lesson or a provoking idea.

And so it continues: The Open Letter Series

An open letter to symbols and allusion in literature,

Dear symbols and allusion,

I hate you. When I’m reading literature, I don’t care if Shakespeare was referring to Genesis in King Lear or if Emily Bronte was referring to Hercules in Wuthering Heights.

Let’s establish the fact that I’m coming at this with the standpoint of an annoyed English student. I am very experienced with going through Shakespeare’s plays scene-by-scene, line-by-line, hyper analyzing the shit out of every single word and the symbolic meaning of Macbeth’s dreams. Having a teacher drone on about how the use of colour in some Edgar Allen Poe story  reflects the passing of life or whatever does absolutely nothing for me.

I’m not the first to say that I read for pleasure. I have never taken a book and said “by jove, I think I will take this literary masterpiece and look for its symbolic, figurative diction and examine its purpose and use of allusion and the role of omnominompia in the text! (and of course such a person who would do such a thing would exhibit such a vocabulary). I will read and re read my favourite books, novels recommended by friends, bestsellers from goodreads or ones with good back sleeve plot summaries. I have absolutely no intention of ever looking at a book for its academic literary purpose.

That’s why, symbolic intent, I consider you to be an absolute waste of time. You’re a fabrication of English teacher’s imaginations when they realized that they could only teach how to write essays so many time or that all the kids in their classes already spoke and wrote English with proper grammar. You were invented for the purpose of torturing students, which means that I resent you even more as a student myself. Your purpose is to make units longer, for hands to cramp because of note writing and to be a source of paper-wasting. Truly, symbolic intent doesn’t actually matter. An author isn’t any smarter for referencing or name dropping historical people, it just makes them a big freaking nerd.

Now is usually the time where I say “symbolic intent may not be that bad, it expands kid’s imaginations”, but I’m not saying that. I could not care less about symbolic intent. The chance of a writer using symbols without being entirely happenstantial is, in my experience (which is understandably limited) highly unlikely. The only reason I can fathom as to why an author would put so much effort into symbols in literature would be in response to a poor plot or character development, giving the book an aura of prestige because those who catch onto symbolic meaning without it being explicitly stated in the text are those who are considered to be part of the literate upper class, those who read for the sake of finding symbolic or allusionary value in work.

But why are they all here? Why are there so many symbols that have been found in stories and movies?

It’s the idea of looking for something hard enough and finding it. In literature, you have to take big reaches sometimes to give things symbolic meaning. You can spin what you read in literature to how you read it, emphasising certain words and thinking that something means something else. Literature allows you that freedom and gives you opportunities to connect things to each other that don’t really make much sense at first glance (or at second glance, or third glance).

Symbolic intent, you’re entirely redundant. The fact that I need to write five page essays about you is an entire waste of time. Just think, there’s actually good literature out there, but we’re stuck reading the same novels because of its “timeless symbolism”. And English teachers wonder why so many students don’t read material.

Best wishes,

Johanna