Essay Samples on Symbolism

Essay Examples
Essay Topics

Hearing about an essay on symbolism may frighten even the bravest college students, yet there is nothing to fear because the list of topics to write about will always depend on your initial task. It can be a symbolism of friendship in a book that you have read during the semester or symbolism of mosques in Turkey. In any case, it makes sense when you see a sample of what it means in practice. Take a look at our free essay example that explores symbolism to see that it goes beyond typical metaphors. See how the conclusion part sums up the basic information in a simpler way and connects to the main thesis. Pay attention to how the quotes are incorporated to support certain thoughts and ideas.

Importance and Symbolism of Jaguars in Mesoamerica

Jaguars. The most abundant species of large cats in the Americas and the third most abundant in the world. Jaguars are sleek and elegant, but they are also agile and powerful animals that sit on top of the food chain. With these characteristics it is...

The Role Of Symbolism In "Never Let Me Go" By Kazuo Ishiguro

Essay grade Excellent

“Never Let Me Go” is a novel that shows what happens when a society is given the tools to freely experiment. These experiments are done with scientific experimentation without taking into consideration the moral implications. One can read this novel as “a cautionary tale regarding...

The Long Way Down: Symbolism of Mandala in the Novel

Essay grade Excellent

The novel Long Way Down, written by the American author Jason Reynolds, is told by a 15-year-old African American boy William Holloman who is referred to as in the story as Will. He starts by describing the incident of his brother’s assassination and recalls every...

Analysis of Symbolism in The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Essay grade Good

In literature, symbolism is a literary device frequently used by writers to convey deeper significance through the use of symbols. One of the most influential and celebrated authors in the literary world, Edgar Allan Poe, often employed this literary device. Poe's works often featured dark...

Symbolism in the Poems "I Hear America Singing" and "Dover Beach"

Essay grade Satisfactory

In this poem, “I Hear America Singing,” the people are given the freedom no matter their job to be able to sing the songs they want and still have an opinion. This poem describes people that make up America today such as carpenters, wives, mothers,...

Clothing as Symbolism of Poverty in Gary Soto's "The Jacket"

Essay grade Satisfactory

In 'The Jacket' port of entry and written by Gary Soto duplicate on the characterization and development of the verbalizer. Soto is just looking and keeping his eye on the jacket throughout the majority of the story. Since “The Jacket” uses an exact object, the...

The Symbolism and Depiction of the Artist's Life in "A Hunger Artist"

Essay grade Satisfactory

The thesis that I choose is that the panther represents a vibrant life that is no longer available to the artist. The panther seems to be the complete and total opposite of the hunger artist. The artist belongs in the past, while the panther belongs...

The Trickster Symbolism in Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road

Character is a major building block in life and is essential to the development of literature. Often the development of characters is seen using archetypes. When an author uses an archetype in their writing, they link it to many other stories that use that same...

Social Constructs and Symbolism in A Noiseless Patient Spider

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a prolific writer of the Transcendental era, suggests that American democracy should progress through the individual part of a whole opposed to the largely popular idea that it takes a group of many. In his address titled “The American Scholar,” Emerson hopes...

The Elements of Symbolism in Lady Lazarus

Published in the middle of the most fruitful time of Plath's resourcefulness, Lady Lazarus is an extremely dull and severe poem. Obviously, it is by all accounts a portrayal of a lady's Suicide Attempts. These endeavors will be tries to break free from the man...

Characteristics of the Works of W. B. Yeats

Yeats’ ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death’ is an elegy characterized and stopped by light rhythms- an inevitable finality like death itself. A poem imbued with Yeats’ romantic aspiration for an acceptance and balance between life's inherent oppositions; temporality and eternity, ‘An Irish Airman’ is...

Themes and Symbolism in William Cullen Bryant's Poem Thanatopsis

Born in 1794 and dying in 1878, William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, writer, and longtime editor of the New York Evening Post, and the author of Thanatopsis, which means consideration of death. During the time Thanatopsis was written in the 1800s, there...

The Role of Themes and Symbolism in "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"

Essay grade Good

In literature, there are many different genres of stories one can read. From fiction to autobiographies, there is something for everyone to enjoy. While stories are enjoyable, sometimes it is important to slow down and look at the deeper meaning(s) behind what the author is...

The Beautiful and Meaningful Symbolism in "Inherit The Wind"

Essay grade Satisfactory

Symbolism can found everywhere, majorly of it is in literature. This is used by many authors to provide a deeper meaning to their novels. Numerous symbols can be straightforward while others tend to be tough to find. There are countless amounts of symbols in the...

The Representations of the Abstract in Inherit the Wind

A symbol is a concrete thing that represents something that is abstract and something completely different from itself, to show an idea to the story. The play, 'Inherit the Wind' written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is a magnificence story that shows you...

The Symbolism of Colors in the poem, The Century Quilt

“The Century Quilt” by Marilyn Waniek is a poem that expresses the importance of a quilt she remembers from her life growing up. It describes the memories and feelings that the speaker has towards Meema’s blanket and what the quilt may do for her. By...

The Symbolism of Horses in "All the Pretty Horses"

Essay grade Good

Freedom can be interpreted into various of meanings. To have freedom is to live in the moment, without regretting the past or anticipating the future. To have freedom can also mean to be in the state of not being subject to or affected by undesirable...

All the Pretty Horses: The Growth of the Characters

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy is a quest story in which John Grady Cole trades his innocence for experience and finally finds the ‘paradise’ he has always been dreaming of. John Grady Cole does not value the same things as those whom he...

The Ghosts of Life and Love: Themes in Virginia Woolf’s “A Haunted House”

Essay grade Excellent

“When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure”. This common saying does a beautiful job at highlighting the main idea of the short story “A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf. The story itself is about a ghostly couple who tend to...

The Profound Symbolism in Snow Falling on Cedars

In the northwestern United States, there is a small island called 'San Piedro', where the Hastue of the Japanese girl was born. She is graceful, gentle, and hardworking. She and the white boy, Ishmael, grew up together and lived together for a long time. With...

The Use and Elements of Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper

In one of his most significant essays “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, H. P. Lovecraft analyses the history of weird fiction and the horror genre itself. In this essay, he dictates about the literary genre, claiming that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,...

Symbolism of the Corruption of Justice in The Visit

In The Visit, author, Friedrich Durrenmatt uses the development of characters and symbolism to raise the questions of corruptibility of Justice “Can Justice Be Bought”? The main characters, Claire Zachanassian, Alfred Ill and the townspeople of Güllen all help the author give us, as audience...

Depiction of Post WAr Trauma in Mrs. Dalloway and Symbolism Used in the Novel

In Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf uses the characters in the novel to represent the different ideologies of British society following World War I. Clarissa is the epitome of repression and denial; she beautifies her world to hide the ugliness of death and pain underneath. At...

The Use of Symbolism and Imagery for Characterisation in "Fences"

Essay grade Satisfactory

August Wilson chose to write a play known as “Fences” in 1985. “Fences” is a story about a former baseball player that got into some trouble as a teenager and was sent to jail for fifteen years and became a waste management professional (garbage man)....

Analysis of the Use of Symbolism in "Ender's Game"

Essay grade Good

“Literature itself is a species of code. You line up symbols and create a simulacrum of life,” According to Marcel Raymond Theroux, an English novelist, and broadcaster. Symbolism is crucial in the literature to convey meaning in a text and authors frequently use symbolism as...

The Implication of Semiotic Features in Selfish Gian by Oscar Wilde

Abstract This writing explains the symbols or signs in a short story, The Selfish Giant, written by Oscar Wilde, to explore the explicit meaning of the text. The writer chooses this short story, because the short story is used to examine students’ reading comprehension. This...

Symbolismin Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous authors in American history. His tightly build, heart-gripping short stories has left everyone impressed and as he is well known for his poetry, he is well know for his prose as well. Symbolism is the most...

Symbolism of Mist and Personal Beliefs in "Great Expectations"

Essay grade Satisfactory

Symbolism in a text is provided to bring forth the deeper meaning that the author intended to convey. As characters grow and develop, they unlock what the symbolic effect that it may have on then. In the well-known book, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the...

Characters and Symbolism in "The Green Mile" by Stephen King

Essay grade Satisfactory

The Green Mile is a novel written by Paul Edgecombe, Cold Mountains death row supervisor, about a man named John Coffey and his time at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary, in Louisiana, in 1932. Throughout the course of the novel, the protagonist faces many internal and...

Symbolism In 'Oliver Twist' By Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens has written a depressing and intriguing tale called Oliver Twist. The plot is sad, just as the setting is sad. Oliver Twist, the main character, is abused many times by his superiors and caretakers. This book certainly has a twist, the sadness that...

Symbols And Motifs In 'Hard Times' By Charles Dickens

Symbols or motifs are key elements in various novels and short stories, the use of these elements help depicts other things by offering them a different meaning that is more vivid and deep. In the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens, there are countless amounts...

Christian Symbolism in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

From the advent of the Bible, both religious and Christian concepts have also been used in writing. The historical imagery of the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” published by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797, has been debated throughout literary history. Scholars have always come up...

Symbolism of Colours in “Beloved” By Toni Morrison

In the novel “Beloved” Toni Morrison tells the tumultuous story of a freed slave after the civil war. The effects of post-slavery in Beloved is encapsulated by the words of William E. Cross Jr. when depicting treatment for this trauma, “ …makes it a scientific...

Usage of Symbolism in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are poems that diverge experience and innocence. Poem 1 is written when the boy was new to the labour and wasn’t used to living in these harsh conditions, meanwhile Poem 2 is when the boy was...

The Symbolism of Blood in "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya

Essay grade Good

In the novel Bless me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, a numerous amount of symbolism is shown throughout the whole story. The water, the Golden Carp, the Virgin Mary, Ultima’s owl and plenty of others but a very compelling symbol from the novel is blood. Blood...

The Use of Symbolism in "Pan's Labyrinth" by Guillermo del Toro

Essay grade Good

Pan's Labyrinth is a dark fantasy film of 2006 by Guillermo del Toro. As a student, watching this film really have been a new taste to my preference and as I dug deeper and see through the details of this movie, I noticed few linings...

Symbolism in the Play The Glass Menagerie

In the Glass Menagerie play by Tennessee Williams, he shows three characters face the discordant realities of life. Tennessee Williams, use of symbolism computes depth and better representation to the play. The Glass Menagerie itself is a symbol to display the unsettled lives of Tom,...

The Deeper Symbolism and Analysis of Christian Values in Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy is a critically acclaimed Russian novelist who dared to go against the contemporary orthodox ideas of his time in his quest of truth. He was a realist who didn’t believe in conventional norms of romanticization of literature which was prevalent in his time....

The Use of Ironic Symbolism in Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"

Essay grade Satisfactory

The novel Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, contains numerous of these motifs and symbols, that may be easy to miss at first. Tolstoy used these motifs in a calculated way and has them appear in the novel throughout. Multiple characters and events that take place surrounding...

Reader's Perspective of the Literary Works

A reader’s perspective of a literary piece is a major component of a writer’s success. A writer uses hidden messages or symbols beneath the morals of the story to allow for the imagination of the audience to be explored. In the play Macbeth, William Shakespeare...

The Symbolism of Death in the Book Thief

A small fact: “you are going to die“ 1939. Nazi Germany: The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel a nine-year-old girl is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp....

Symbolism in Philosophical Novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Can you spot any of these common symbols in your novel? What might they symbolize? In The Alchemist, sheep are one of the main symbols throughout the book. Santiago’s sheep symbolize the characters in the novel who are blind to their personal legends. Santiago loves...

Symbolism of Blood as Realization of Guilt in "Macbeth"

The role of blood in Macbeth is full of symbolism and hidden meanings. The mental state of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are both greatly deteriorated by the sight of blood. Multiple times throughout the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would hallucinate and see blood...

The Effect of Symbolism in Never Let Me Go

Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go addresses questions about past, present, and future ethics and morals surrounding technological advancements and specifically, cloning humans. Using a thirty-one year old named Kathy’s recollection, narration is used to display the inevitability of loss in a preparatory school for...

The Common Conception on the Symbolism of Color

Every color has its own meaning and what it stands for, but every person and culture puts on a different meaning depending on the color. One color could mean one thing in one country and something totally different in another, whereas some colors carry out...

Importance Of Mascots In Doyle’s “A Note On Mascots”

From reading Doyle’s “A Note on Mascots” he is seen trying to explain to his readers that the reason Mascots are important to us is because we feel attached to them. He continues to elaborate his point by including major reasons why we feel this...

Analysis Of The Painting The Penitent Magdalen By Georges De La Tour

French painter Georges de La Tour (1593-1652) realized The Penitent Magdalen around 1640, an oil on canvas now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting, which is 133.4 by 102.2 centimeters, depicts a young woman, Magdalen, sitting in front of a table...

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