![\"red](\"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/red-wheelbarrow.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cOh good Lord,\u201d I thought to myself, \u201cHow the hell am I supposed to know? I don\u2019t know why the wheelbarrow is red, perhaps the farmer had extra red paint after fixing up his barn. The white chicken? We used to have chickens in our back yard. Let\u2019s see, they came in all colors, but we mostly had white ones because they were the best layers. Maybe that\u2019s the reason.\u201d<\/p>\nI kept quiet. I knew my answer was entirely inadequate compared to one of the more worldly New Yorkers who commented on the brilliant choice of the word glazed. \u201cI think that glazed suggests the passage of time,\u201d she said. \u201cA few minutes ago the wheelbarrow would have been wet because it was still raining, but if it\u2019s glazed, the sun must be shining now. So the wheelbarrow represents that moment of time between wetness and dryness. See what I mean? The glazing is the present tense that represents the division between before and after. Yeah, I mean so much depends on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Please note that I have not peppered this remembered conversation with the word \u201clike\u201d \u2013 the reflexive and continual use of this word had not yet infiltrated 1960s dialogue.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thinking that the wheel barrow might be a religious symbol,\u201d said another student. \u201cAfter all it has only three legs \u2013 couldn\u2019t it be the holy trinity?\u201d Mr. Shohet nodded appreciatively. In my corner I tried to shrivel into a non-entity.<\/p>\n
I had not yet said a word all semester when the discussion turned to the recent movie The Graduate. I think Mr. Shohet felt that he was lobbing me a gimmee when he turned to me and said, \u201cBobbie, what did you think of the end of the movie when Benjamin Braddock is standing in the nave above the church? Remember his arms are outstretched and he is banging on the window to interrupt the wedding ceremony.\u201d<\/p>\n
In college I gravitated to science courses as I prepared for medical school. However, English 101 was a requirement for graduation. So there I was in my last semester of college, feeling like a senior citizen as I stood in the registration line with jabbering freshman. Due to the size of this introductory class, students were randomly assigned to individual professors who set their own curriculum. The next day I was horrified to see that I had been assigned to a poetry section. This was it. I could avoid it no longer. Time to suck it up and wade into the shadowy world of symbolism.<\/p>\n My professor was a fan of Yeats, a Nobel prize-winning English poet famous for using symbolism to express two opposing forces of nature. With that little clue, I tried to invent as many symbols as I could. I just let it rip. I opined that roses could represent the tension between beauty and inevitable decay, stones could symbolize either reliability or obstinacy, and water, well what the hell, I cribbed off of the glazed wheelbarrow. With solid, liquid and gas forms, I wrote that good old H2O could somehow symbolize the transition from past to present to future. I aced the class and was relieved to get my diploma. However, the whole exercise was confusing. I felt like a fraud. After all I had just made everything up. There was no proof.<\/em><\/p>\n After this final college triumph, I entered the strictly symbolism-free world of medical school. Ah, the particular pleasure of sitting down with a good textbook and the soothing aroma of a fresh neon highlighter. My very limited leisure reading focused on non-fiction, with an emphasis on military history \u2013 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Collapse of the Third Republic, The Proud Tower were all checked off my reading list. I appreciated those authors who could synthesize masses of information into readable and informative accounts, skills that I would later need in my career as a medical writer.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t come face to face with symbolism again until I started binge-watching the TV show Breaking Bad with my friend Sallie, an English major whose right brain is a coiled treasure of creativity and imagination. Sallie ripped off symbols right and left as I sat transfixed watching Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher, turn to cooking meth to support his family. I was into the plot line, Sallie into symbolism. \u201cBobs, Bobs, look at the pattern of those window blinds, Bobs, did you see that color, do you think green shirt is a symbol for envy or for rejuvenation, how about that tarantula trapped in a glass, what do you think that means?\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately, Sallie is much less intimidating than Mr. Shohet and I started to watch Breaking Bad with a newly critical eye. There was one recurring image of a charred, one-eyed pink teddy bear floating in Walter\u2019s back yard pool. We eventually learned that the toy was a piece of falling debris from an overhead mid-air collision. Walt eventually finds the missing eye in the swimming pool scupper and keeps it. Certainly, there are a lot of ways you can go with this \u2013 you\u2019ve got the falling from the sky, you\u2019ve got the symbol-rich eyeball, the charring, the color pink, the symbolic drowning in the pool, on and on.<\/p>\n “The teddy bear eyeball that Walt found in his swimming pool is symbolic. It’s very, very symbolic. However, I’m not sure I can tell you with 100% certainty of what the symbolism is, what it represents\u2026 but I’m always interested in hearing what it means to viewers of the show.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In another interview: Are you kidding me? The author doesn\u2019t even understand his own symbols? It\u2019s up to me? Okay, I get it. Yes I can appreciate the story line of Breaking Bad without the symbols, but perhaps I can have a deeper experience if I seek a more active role in the triangle of reader, author and story. However, I\u2019ve got to say that this sounds like a parlor game, and I\u2019m not alone. Judging from internet traffic, aficionados have spent hours repeatedly watching episodes to find and decipher Vince Gilligan\u2019s hidden symbols.<\/p>\n I was willing to give this game a try, but I needed a few more ground rules to help me along. I extracted the following workable tips on symbolism from the book \u201cHow to Read Literature Like a Professor,\u201d by Thomas Foster:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0 If it\u2019s longer than it is wide, it might be a phallic symbol Okay, now I\u2019m ready to play. My first effort will be the analysis of the symbolism in \u201cA Whiter Shade of Pale,\u201d the iconic 1967 song by the English band Procul Harem. This is my all time favorite song from my high school days, in part based on the introductory hook of the haunting organ solo. I have always loved the mood and the melody, but never understood the lyrics. Now I\u2019m up for the challenge.<\/p>\n We skipped the light fandango [Chorus] She said, there is no reason And so it was that later I can\u2019t quite fit all the images in, but my best guess is that this the story of two people in a relationship. The first verse is from the viewpoint of the woman, a vestal virgin who is working hard to maintain her vow of chastity. Unfortunately, I think that she might have \u201croofied\u201d in the bar, hence the symbols of the cartwheels, humming and fly-away ceiling. The second complete verse is from the point of view of the man. Here is my major insight \u2013 the two italicized lines should be read as a single sentence, i.e. the man would not let her be a virgin. Now it becomes clear. The man rapes her and then drowns her at the coast. The chorus is the cautionary tale told by the miller. Internet chatter suggest that the miller represents on of Chaucer\u2019s story tellers, but I have a better idea. A miller symbolizes a person who separates the wheat from the chaff and finds the essential truth. He describes the woman\u2019s face as all life slips away and she slowly drifts off, her image distorted and ghostly under the warping water.<\/p>\n As compelling as this analysis might be, my second interpretation is that this is a delusional mess from a drug-addled lyricist.<\/p>\n The internet offers many other interpretations, and I was interested in the singer Annie Lennox\u2019s version, as depicted by her music video. She creates a circus-themed montage with horses, clowns, jugglers, trapeze artists, and women in tutus. Based on this video, I would like to add another symbol to Foster\u2019s symbolism cheat sheet. An resplendent glistening white horse, confirmed to be male on careful stop-action viewing, most certainly must be a sexual symbol.<\/p>\n If you want to decipher symbols like a literary genius<\/p>\n Get ready because everything will start to look like a *****.<\/p>\n That ramrod straight ***** that extends from your hips to your neck,<\/p>\n Ask yourself, is it longer than it is wide? CHECK!<\/p>\n You might think that ***** is a verb, but let me introduce you to the bird,<\/p>\n Yes graceful ***** gently sway when the wind is breezy<\/p>\n By now you know my point, so finding the symbol is easy.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Answers:\u00a0 penis, spine, snipe, pines<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: In college, I was convinced that symbolism would be my downfall. I\u2019d never graduate. It all started in high school when I was a new sophomore in an all-girls boarding school. Mr. Shohet, my English teacher, seemed like an aggressive, … Continue reading <\/a>I knew that it had to be something religious, even I could see that Benjamin was a Christ figure with his arms outstretched \u2013 in a church no less \u2013 but I could not come up with a reasonable explanation. I erupted in flop sweat as I scrambled for some sort of pithy response. Was this a satire on church, marriage, did Benjamin feel that he was being sacrificed on a plastic cross of wealth and ambition? I absolutely froze. I distinctly remember my shame in saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know about the church but I liked the Simon and Garfunkel music in the movie.\u201d That was the best that I could come up with. I continued to hide in English class for the rest of high school. In my junior year, my English teacher wrote that I was bored and hostile, but the real issue was that Mrs. Harvey just wasn\u2019t able to recognize cowering fear.<\/p>\n<\/a>I reverted back to my high school question of \u201cForget about me, what did the author mean to say?\u201d Here is what Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, has to say about the famous pink teddy bear:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYour appreciation of the show doesn\u2019t in any way rely on noticing these things. But they are there to be noticed, nonetheless, which is up to the viewer to pick up on it or not.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0 If it\u2019s a swimming pool, think womb or alternatively isolation and drowning. (see \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Graduate for examples.)
\n3.\u00a0\u00a0 Any kinds of stripes (window slats, staircase), think prison
\n4.\u00a0\u00a0 Food often has a sexual context, particularly when someone is gnawing and \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sucking on ribs (think Tom Jones).
\n5.\u00a0\u00a0 It would be helpful to have a working knowledge of the Bible, Shakespeare and \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Greek mythology, since plot lines tend to repeat themselves.
\n6.\u00a0\u00a0 Rain is often transformative or cleansing, but probably not if it\u2019s associated with \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 mud. Fog symbolizes confusion, snow can really be anything.
\n7.\u00a0\u00a0 A car ride or any kind of trip is usually something more \u2013 a quest for \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 self-knowledge is a popular theme.
\n8.\u00a0\u00a0 Always notice colors (see Internet for extensive discussion of colors in Breaking \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Bad)<\/p>\n
\nTurned cartwheels cross the floor
\nI was feeling kinda seasick
\nBut the crowd called out for more
\nThe room was humming harder
\nAs the ceiling flew away
\nWhen we called out for another drink
\nThe waiter brought a tray<\/p>\n
\nAnd so it was that later
\nAs the miller told his tale
\nThat her face, at first just ghostly,
\nTurned a whiter shade of pale<\/p>\n
\nAnd the truth is plain to see.
\nBut I wandered through my playing cards
\nAnd would not let her be
\nOne of sixteen vestal virgins
\nWho were leaving for the coast
\nAnd although my eyes were open
\nThey might have just as well’ve been closed<\/p>\n
\nAs the miller told his tale
\nThat her face, at first just ghostly,
\nTurned a whiter shade of pale<\/p>\n<\/a>So Annie\u2019s got her opinion, I\u2019ve got mine and I am newly comfortable with competing neither right nor wrong analyses. Nevertheless, I am ready to reach for the book at my bedside table, The History of the Tank.<\/p>\nThe missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.<\/em><\/h6>\n
<\/a>If you are in the symbolism groove, your brain will say the p-word.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"