Examples of Symbol Web, John Truby, The Anatomy of Story, p. 250–253
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
“The Usual Suspects” tells a unique story in which the main character creates his own symbolic character using the techniques that we’ve been talking about, while the story is happening. Appropriately named Verbal, he is apparently a small-tima crook and ally but is actually the hero, a master criminal (the main opponent), and a storyteller. In telling the customs interrogator what happened, he constructs a terrifying, ruthless character named Keyser Soze. He attaches to this character the symbol of the devil, in such a way that Keyser Soze gains mythical power to the point that just the mention of his name strikes terror in the heart. At the end of the story, the audience learns that Verbal is Keyser Soze, and he is a master criminal in part because he is a master storyteller. “The Usual Suspects” is great storytelling and symbol making at the highest level.
STAR WARS
One of the main reasons “Star Wars” has been so popular is that it is founded on the technique of symbolic theme. This apparently simple fantasy adventure story has a strong theme that is concentrated in the symbol of the light saber. In this technologically advanced world where people travel at light speed, both heroes and opponents fight with a saber. Obviously, this is not realistic. But it is realistic enough in this world to be an object that can take on thematic power. The light saber symbolizes the samurai code of training and conduct that can be used for good or evil. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this symbolic object and the theme it represents to the wolrdwide success of “Star Wars”.
FORREST GUMP
“Forrest Gump” uses two objects to stand for themes: the feather and the box of chocolates. You could criticize the writers’ technique of attaching symbol to theme as heavy-handed. In this everyday world, a feather just floats down from the sky and lands at Forrest’s feet. Obviously, the feather represents Forrest’s free spirit and open, easygoing way of life. The box of chocolates is even more obvious. Forrest states, “My momma always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’” This is a direct thematic statement of the right way to live connected to a metaphor.
But these two symbols attached to themes work much better than they at first sight appear, and the reasons are instructive. First, “Forrest Gump” is a myth form connected to a drama, and the story covers about forty years. So like the feather, the story meanders over space and time with no apparent direction except the general line of history. Second, its hero is a simpleton who thinks in a easy-to-remember platitudes. A “normal” character declaring outright that life is like a box of chocolates is preachy. But simple Forrest is pleased by this charming insight, learned from his beloved mother, and so is most of the audience.
ULYSSES
Joyce takes the idea of storyteller as magician, symbol maker, and puzzle maker further than any other writer. This has benefits, but it also has costs, most notably moving the audience from an emotional response to one that is intensely intellectual. When you present literally thousands of subtle and even obscure symbols in thousands of tricky ways, you force your reader to become a story scientist or literary sleuth, determined to step as far back as possible to see how this elaborate puzzle is constructed. Like “Citizen Kane” (though for different reasons), “Ulysses” is a story that you can admire greatly for its techniques but that is very hard to love. So let’s look at its symbol techniques.
Story Symbol and Symbolic Characters
Joyce sets up a web of symbolic characters primarily by overlaying onto his story the characters of the “Odyssey”, the Christ story, and “Hamlet”. He supplements his references to these major character webs with references to real people and iconic characters from Ireland’s past. This strategy has a number of advantages. First, it connects character to theme: Joyce is trying to create a natural, or humanistic, religion out of his characters’ actions. His everyday characters, Bloom, Stephen and Molly, take on heroic and even godlike qualities, not just by what they do but also by their constant references to other characters like Odysseus, Jesus and Hamlet.
This technique also places the characters of “Ulysses” within a great cultural tradition while showing them rebelling from that tradition and emerging as unique individuals. This is exactly the line of character development Stephen is struggling through over the course of the story. Oppresed by his Catholic upbringing and England’s domination of Ireland but not wanting to destroy all spirituality, Stephen searches for a way to be his own person and a real artist.
Another advantage to matching characters with characters from other stories is that it gives Joyce a web of character signposts that extend throughout the book. This is immensely helpful when you are writing a story as long and complex as this. Besides being a designing principle, the character signposts allow Joyce to gauge how his leads change over the course of the story by referring to these same symbolic characters — Odysseus, Jesus, Hamlet — in different ways.
Symbolic Actions and Objects
Joyce applies these same techniques of symbolic character to the actions and objects of the story. He constantly compares the actions of Bloom, Stephen, and Molly to Odysseus, Telemachus, and Penelope, and the effect on the reader is both heroic and ironic. Bloom defeats his Cyclops and makes his escape from the dark cave of a bar. Stephen is haunted by his dead mother, just as Odysseus meets his mother in Hades and Hamlet is visited by his murdered father’s ghost. Molly stays at home just like Penelope, but unlike the faithful Penelope, she becomes famous there for her infidelity.
The symbolic objects in “Ulysses” form a vast web of “sacred” things in Joyce’s naturalistic, everyday religion. Both Stephen and Bloom leave their homes without their keys. Stephen has broken his glasses just the day before. But while his real sight is diminished, he has the chance to be a visionary, to gain his artistic sight over the course of the day’s journey. An ad for “Plum’s Potted Meat” — “A home isn’t really a home without it” — refers to the lack of the sacred act of sex between Bloom and his wife and the harm it has done to their home. Stephen wields his walking stick like a sword at the chandelier in the brothel and breaks free of the past that holds him like a prison. Bloom believes that Catholic communion is a lolipop for believers, but he and Stephen have a real communion when they share coffee and then cocoa at Bloom’s home.
