see the page of the International Nabokov Society
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)
Contextual references and relation to the time the short story was written: When “Symbols and Signs” was published in 1948, the world was still dealing with the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Although the story never directly mentions these events, there are subtle references that connect it to this historical moment.
ReplyDeleteThe elderly couple are Russian immigrants living in America. Many people in the 1940s had been forced to leave their countries because of the war. The couple’s loneliness and fragile life in the US show the emotional impact of displacement after the war.
There are also brief references to family members who died in Europe, which can be understood as hints to the Holocaust. These quiet mentions of lost relatives suggest a background of trauma and destruction that shapes the couple’s present life. Even the son’s mental illness, where he believes everything is a hidden message about him, shows a world filled with fear and suspicion.
-Clarita Kroon
Character description- the son: In "Symbols and Signs" by Vladimir Nabokov, the son is initially presented as a deeply fragile and isolated character. From the beginning, the son is described as "incurably deranged", which unfortunately places him in a position of vulnerability. He is not giving a name, which makes him seem even more distant and hard for the readers to connect or understand. His mental condition referred as "referential mania", leads him to believe that everything around him is, in some way, connected to him through hidden messages. Things like ordinary objects, movements, or events can become personal signal, which how trapped he is inside his own distorted perception of reality. It is also say the his condition has been presented since childhood. He was described as looking "more surprised than most babies", which hints at an early emotional fragility. His attempts to taking his life, such as the one mentioned on his birthday, highlight how overwhelming his inner world has become. Overall, the son is portrayed as lonely, misunderstood, and mentally imprisoned in a reality that he cannot escape.
ReplyDelete- Matilde Amaro
2) Character description - the son
ReplyDeleteIn Vladimir Nabokov’s "Symbols and Signs", the son of a couple who had migrated from Europe to America is described from the very beginning as a “young man who was incurably deranged in his mind”.
The character, nameless, is a strange presence in the story, he is there but is distantly depicted and never speaks: he only exists through his parents’ words and memories of when he was a child, but also through the worry he creates for them in the present; there are almost no positive connotations about this boy, neither physical ones (“his poor face sullen, confused, ill-shaven, and blotched with acne”) or about his actions.
As a matter of fact, this alienated character suffers from “referential mania”, which distorts his reality making him live in constant alert believing that everything that happens around him is directly connected to his existence or is a message for him, beside adult problems he has had since a very young age, like insomnia.
This fragile boy shows how his whole existence has been marked by difficult situations, mainly caused by the historical period and setting where he had grown up, which is the reason why he has moved during his childhood and probably has developed problems in belonging being always suspicious of everything, reaching the point of attempting several times to take his own life until he needs to be put in a psychiatric clinic. There, he is visited by his resigned parents, who have to worry even for the smallest details when choosing what to give him as a birthday present, adding up to their own condition and past of migrants.
There are many temporal and spacial deictics throughout the text, giving it a sense of movement and chronological space. It is very interesting to the reader to have these kind of cues, as it envolves him more in the reading, making it feel like the story is happening around him and not merely being described. aluno 151914
ReplyDelete