see the page of the International Nabokov Society, http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/bio.htm
In "Symbols and Signs", comment on one or more of the following aspects:
1. Use of deictics
2. Character description - the son
3. Contextual references and relation to the time the short story was written (1948)
In "Symbols and Signs", comment on one or more of the following aspects:
1. Use of deictics
2. Character description - the son
3. Contextual references and relation to the time the short story was written (1948)
2.Character Description – The son
ReplyDeleteVladimir Nabokov’s short story “Symbols and Signs” presents a very non-detailed depiction of a Jewish Russian family, composed by an old couple and their incurable mentally deranged son. The story opens on the parents’ complex decision to what to buy for their son’s birthday.
The first information we receive about their son, is that he is a very young boy (twenty years old), with no dreams, no aspirations, no desires. He has already attempt suicide more than once. Furthermore, as the reader suggests along the story, the guy suffers from a paranoia disease called “referential mania”, which makes him believe that everything that happens in the world has somehow a meaning related to his own existence.
Since the story presents very few details about his conditions and, for instance, does not give us the possibility to clearly understand his situation, we can only imagine and try to suppose his status in attempting to compose the puzzle of his identity, that is spread all over the narration.
What emerges from the text is, mostly, his parents’ point of view, about him and about his disease. In his illness, all the symbols and signs that life presented him were seen, in a way, connected with him. He was persuaded by the idea of a conspiracy, moved by the world against him. His illness, however, could be linked with the family story’s background, full of struggle and mistreatments.
As the guy feel like the victim of the world where he lives in, victim of a bad force who is trying to kill him pushing him to attempt suicide, in the same way, indeed, his family is really victim of a mean world, limited by its own mental bounders and fear for diversity. It is like, in both situations, there is a concrete factor and an unreal one. In the boy’s mind conception, the real world wants to destroy him and, this illusion is materialized with his illness. On the other hand, the baseless and unfounded hate of the world towards the family, for the only fact of “being different”, is tangible and concrete. This metaphor is useful to explain their conditions as immigrants. Never feel at home, never feel wanted, never feel safe, exactly as the guy.
In less words, his disease symbolises their reality. Struggling for years, trying to finally grab the so long followed happiness, which, due to the tone of the story, will probably never be reached. This struggle is, in a way, the same conflict that the son has with life. The interesting meaning of this contrast underlines how the guy himself becomes the personification of the symbols and signs suggested by the title.
He represents, with his illness, the fine line between what is true and what is not, between reality and illusion, between good and bad, life and death.
Sara Malavolta – n°155422
1) The use of deitics in "Symbols and Signs" is significant, as it plays a major role in setting the tone for the short story. Indeed, the story pulls the reader in with its first sentence due to the mysterious use of "they" without immediately giving us its referent. Furthermore, later on in the same sentence, we're told "they" (the couple) is puzzled over what to buy "a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind" (the son). Using the indefinite article here makes it even harder for the reader to decipher who the characters of the short story might be. It isn't until further down the paragraph that we, the reader, get a clear notion of who is involved in the narrative.
ReplyDeleteThis sense of mystery and veiled information is present throughout the whole text. There are no named characters, only characters referred to by general labels (the wife, the husband, the young man) and through pronouns (he, she, hers, his, and so on). At first, this creates a picture of alienation—since moving to the United States, growing older, and adjusting to a new country—the couple ends up losing some of their dignity along the way. This may be one of the reasons why none of the characters (except for a mysterious "Charlie" toward the end of the story) get their own name. They lose part of themselves throughout their journey to America to the point where they're husks of their former selves. Insisting on repeating pronouns (and not proper nouns) emphasises this point.
We're slowly given information about the family's background (diasporic Jewish from Eastern Europe) and, in particular, of the boy's background. It makes the reader feel like they are slowly putting the pieces of a puzzle together to get at the larger picture and truly get inside the character's minds. Since we're given little information to start with, we're encouraged to fill in the gaps and to read between the lines. At no point in the story is this more obvious than in that cryptic ending. Who is Charlie? Why does the woman call the house three times? Why did the author choose to end the story there? We reach conclusions and formulate hypotheses.
It is in this sense that Nabokov makes the reader feel like they're in the young man's position. We, too, have Referential Mania. We are taking the symbols and signs given to us by the author and creating a picture with them, deciphering them so that we can get at some meaning. Being a reader of minimalist fiction (or, at the very least, minimalist-leaning fiction) makes us as "deranged" as the young men, for we see ciphers to be decoded everywhere.
— Rita Cunha
nº150913
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ReplyDelete2. In "Symbols and Signs" by Vladimir Nabokov we follow a couple on a rainy Friday in New York City. The couple is of Russian-Jewish descent and as the story opens they are trying to decide what to buy for their son's birthday, a young man who is "incurably deranged in his mind". He is easy to offend and to frighten.
ReplyDeleteWe are told the kid was born late into their marriage and that a long time has passed since then. No precise ages are given but the use of the word "boy" in relation to him may point either to the parents'affection and perception of him or to his actual age, in which case, he would be in his middle teens to his early twenties.
As the story progresses we see that the son lives in some sort of hospital, surrounded by doctors and that the parents visit him there. He has tried to commit suicide a number of times and we get a quick physical description of his face ("... face sullen, confused, ill-shaven, and blotched with acne...").
Further on we discover that the boy suffers from "referential mania" - a mental illness that makes him paranoid. He believes that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his very existence, that the world is constantly analyzing and conspiring against him and only he is smart enough to understand this.
The last part of the story reveals that his mental illness might have been affected by his family history in both senses of the word: the history of the family and a genetic predisposition.
Through the years his family fled from (Bolshevik) to (Nazi) Germany and finally to America as refugees running from totalitarian, antisemitic governments. Considering the fact that this story was published in 1948, that is, during the Cold War, if we assume it is set during the same period, their Russian origins very likely made them targets for hate once more. This family history of fleeing persecution and prejudice might have affected the boy's paranoia.
But it is important to notice the father's behavior too, as it might indicated something else. The man spends the majority of the story quiet, giving the impression to be a stoic man of very few words. In the end, though this changes dramatically. In the middle of the night, he becomes increasingly animated and talkative, making plans to take his son out of the hospital. It happens very fast and unexpectedly. This erratic behavior along with the passage that shows that he is prone to moodiness ("She knew his moods and was also silent.") may point out to the husband/father having some form of mental illness himself, which would make the boy more likely to have one as well.
- Lenir Costa, nº 155592