The Writer’s Complete Guide to Symbolism in Literature

If you're looking for a literary device that can inspire powerful emotional responses in your readers and help them connect to your novel on a deeper level, symbolism is your gal.

This magical tool turns abstract ideas into sensory experiences that get your audience out of their heads and into their hearts. It allows the physical elements of your story to play a more meaningful role, conveying complex concepts beyond their literal meaning.

And if this all sounds like high-falutin' stuff reserved for literary fiction, you should definitely stick around to learn more. The truth is that symbolism is in every great story, from rom-coms to thrillers to Pulitzer-winning family sagas.

This device will make your story better, as long as you learn how to use it like a pro. That's what we're here for. We'll discuss what symbolism is, why it matters, and how to do it yourself. There will also be plenty of symbolism examples along the way.

If you need help keeping track of all the inspiration that strikes as you learn, don't forget that Dabble Writer comes with loads of features to help you organize your ideas your way. The Plot Grid, Sticky Notes, Labels, Comments, your project Notebook... you've got options, Friend.

And if you're just playing around with ideas that haven't crystallized into a new project yet, you can always store inspiration in your Ideas Notebook and convert that brainstorming into a new project with a click when you’re ready.

Don't have Dabble? You can try it for free for 14 days at this link!

In the meantime, let's talk symbols.

What Is Symbolism?

Symbolism is a literary device in which the writer uses something concrete—an inanimate object, a setting, the weather, even a character—to represent an abstract idea. 

Let’s say you’re writing a story about a young adult getting their first grown-up job and moving into their own apartment. A friend gives them a seedling as a housewarming gift. That plant could potentially symbolize the protagonist’s growth into adulthood, thriving or struggling as the character does.

Symbols allow us to convey complex ideas without spelling everything out for the reader, ensuring that those deeper meanings resonate more powerfully.

Why Should You Include Symbols in Your Writing?

Most of us first learn about symbolism in school while we’re reading classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and Moby Dick. But this literary device isn’t limited to literary fiction.

You can find heaps of symbols in commercial fiction, kids’ television, and action flicks. Pretty much every story that’s ever been loved and repeated features symbolism, because symbols help bridge the gap between the surface narrative and the deeply relatable mess of the human experience.

In other words, symbols remind us why we should care about the story. With a single image, they clarify that the protagonist is being The Worst™ because they’re terrified of abandonment. Or they assure us that a relationship we’re invested in is growing stronger. Or they warn us that terror is on the way.

Here’s how they do all that cool stuff:

Symbols Convey Abstract Ideas

Symbolism is one of many strategies for following the number one rule of writing: Show, don’t tell.

If you’re not familiar with this rule, it basically means that we generally want to avoid telling our readers what happens in the story and instead show them through description and dialogue that make them feel like they’re experiencing it firsthand.

For example, instead of just saying that Janet was angry, you’d show Janet slamming doors or doing that terrifying thing where someone gets really quiet and still.

You can learn more about “show, don’t tell” in this article, or, if you’re a DabbleU Academy member, you can take a whole three-hour course on it here.

Oh yeah. It’s that important. Three-hours important. If your goal is to make your reader feel big feelings (and if you write fiction or creative nonfiction, it is), appealing to their senses is the way to go. That’s just science.

That’s why symbolism is such an essential tool in storytelling. We see Princess Jasmine free her birds and watch them fly into the wide, open sky, and we feel her longing to do the same.

As an added bonus, a well-strategized symbol can help you convey deeper meanings subtly, so your reader doesn’t feel like you’re preaching at them. 

Symbols Can Reveal a Character’s Internal State

This is a great use of symbolism, and once you’re aware of it, you’ll see it everywhere.

A furious storm can reflect a character’s emotional turmoil. They might wear the color red when they’re feeling confident and powerful. A totaled Porsche might symbolize the fragility of a character’s carefully manicured public image.

So many symbols specifically exist to provide a concrete representation of a character’s emotions and evolution. In doing that, they stir big feelings in the reader, too.

Symbolism Adds Depth to Themes

When symbols aren’t revealing a character’s inner life (and sometimes even when they are), they’re exploring a theme.

Themes are the hidden meanings in stories. They’re underlying messages like “Progress comes at great cost” or “Money corrupts.”

Readers find it very annoying when you state the theme directly. Comes off a bit preachy. So you have to find ways to hint at the theme. You’ll want to use a combination of strategies, including our good friend symbolism.

When a symbol is meant to convey a theme, it usually shows up in the story more than once. In each appearance, the surrounding context encourages us to examine the theme from a new angle.

In The Truman Show, the sea represents the illusions that keep Truman trapped inside his little, manufactured world. Christof created a traumatic event in Truman’s childhood to instill a fear of the ocean, and every time Truman is near the water, that fear is either reinforced or challenged.

In the end, Truman can only be free by sailing into the storm to test the validity of his limitations, and he finds a fuller, more authentic life on the other side of the water.

All these scenes build on the theme that living authentically means having the courage to challenge the reality given to us.

Symbols Can Help Establish Cultural Context

As we’ll discuss in a hot second, symbols can be specific to a book or they can be immediately recognizable because of their use in the wider world.

Authors sometimes use the established symbols of a culture to both convey abstract ideas within a story and immerse the reader in the traditions of the story’s setting.

For example, yams play a huge role in Things Fall Apart, representing masculinity for the characters just as they have in Igbo culture for real. 

You don’t even have to use established cultural symbols to draw the experience of a community or region into your literary technique. It’s enough to look at prominent elements of the culture and consider what deeper meaning they might carry in their natural context.

What would alligators represent in a story set in a Florida retirement community? What would a monsoon represent in Las Vegas?

You’ll see the three other perks of symbolism we discussed in everything you read. This fourth benefit isn’t put to use everywhere, but you might be surprised how often it comes up. If you’re writing a story set in a specific time, place, or community, a culturally specific (and properly researched) symbol can add new layers of meaning to your tale.

Types of Symbols

Every symbol is either universal, cultural, or contextual. There’s no hierarchy here and no rules about how many you should have of each type.

So why even bother creating these categories?

It’s mostly because the type impacts the way you present a symbol. You’ll see what I mean as we discuss each one. 

Universal Symbolism

A universal symbol is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a symbol whose deeper meaning is already understood across several cultures.

For example, in many societies, water represents cleansing, light represents hope, and forests represent the unknown.

That doesn’t mean you have to assign those meanings to those symbols in your book. You can do what you want as long as your message is clear to your reader.

The real takeaway is that there is a world full of symbols that are already loaded up and ready to go. If you want to show that your character is starting fresh on the other side of a long and harrowing conflict, you can let them swim in a clear, cool river, and your reader will instantly feel the cleansing of the character’s old life.

You don’t have to explain a thing.

Cultural Symbolism

As we just discussed, cultural symbols are specific to a culture, like how doves represent the Holy Spirit in Christianity. These symbols can be used to draw readers deeper into the world of your story and add another layer of authenticity to the representation of that culture. (Just be sure to make sure you’re using a symbol accurately and respectfully, especially if the community it comes from is not your own.)

In this situation, the symbolism will be obvious to most members of the culture represented in your story. Other readers might need a subtle nudge to recognize the deeper ideas you’re conveying. You’ll learn how to do that in this next section.

Contextual Symbolism

If a symbol only holds a certain meaning in the context of a specific narrative, it’s a contextual symbol.

You know how we all learned in ninth-grade language arts that the green light in The Great Gatsby symbolizes Gatsby’s hope in an unattainable dream? That’s a prime example of a contextual symbol. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book is the only context where we see a green light and think, “There’s that old illusion of possibility again.” 

Of course, this raises an important question. How do we get our readers to interpret symbolic meanings correctly if it’s not a symbol that’s universally understood?

We’re going to discuss the fine art of creating your own symbols in a bit, but the short version is that you want to subtly encourage the reader to make a connection between the symbol and the scene it appears in.

This takes a lot less work than you might think, especially if you’ve made sure that everything in your story serves a purpose. Our brains are already wired to find meaning, and readers assume that if you mention it, it must matter to the story. 

Remember our young adult protagonist setting off on her own for the first time? Remember her little houseplant?

Let’s say she’s suffering big failures at work, can barely afford rent, has a horrible fight with her best friend one night, and now she’s hiding under the covers as her morning alarm goes off, unable to will herself to face another day at her job. 

If you also mention that her plant is wilting in a dark corner of her room, that’s obvious symbolism. You don’t have to do anything more than that.

That said, some symbols grow quietly over the course of your story, and that brings us to…

Recurring Symbolism

This type of symbolism can be universal, cultural, or contextual. It’s not about how familiar the reader is with the symbol. It’s about how often it comes up.

Recurring symbolism is when the same symbol appears time and again throughout your story. Sometimes this object or entity is obviously a symbol from the beginning. Sometimes it’s the repetition that makes the reader realize it stands for something deeper.

The beauty of a recurring symbol is that it reappears in different contexts and at different points of a story arc, allowing readers to explore the ideas it represents from different angles.

If you’re a sucker for literary vocabulary words, when a symbol repeats, it becomes a motif. A motif is a recurring element in a story designed to spotlight a theme or emotional element.

A recurring symbol works best when it represents a big idea or an evolving situation. Mentioning that the sky is cloudy every time your character is in a bad mood would feel heavy-handed and a bit pointless. 

But repeating a symbol to highlight a theme, demonstrate a character’s transformation, or explore the deeper layers of a theme? That’s the move. I’d give you an example, but I’m about to do that in the next section.

Famous Examples of Symbolism in Literature and Film

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As always, the best way to understand a literary device is to see it in action. So let’s discuss some famous examples of symbolism that you can study (if they’re not super familiar already).

The Conch Shell in Lord of the Flies

In Lord of the Flies, a group of schoolboys becomes stranded on a deserted island after their plane is shot down. One of the boys, Ralph, blows a conch shell to summon all survivors, and the shell soon becomes a symbol of order and democracy. When a boy holds the conch, he has the right to speak and be heard.

The trouble is, this rule only works if everyone believes in the importance of everyone else’s voice. Another boy, Jack, questions the necessity of the conch and creates his own faction. Eventually, the conch is destroyed, and any semblance of civilization shatters with it.

The journey of this symbol points to a powerful theme about the fragility of democracy in light of our darker impulses.

Andy’s Name on Woody’s Boot in Toy Story

Here’s a recurring symbol that doesn’t just repeat throughout one story, but throughout a franchise.

It’s established early on in Toy Story that Woody wears Andy’s name on the bottom of his boot with pride. That name symbolizes Woody’s purpose and sense of belonging, so when Buzz Lightyear comes on the scene, an easy way to play up the threat is to show Andy’s name on Buzz’s boot in newer ink and better penmanship.

In Toy Story 2, Woody ends up in the hands of a collector who has Woody repaired. This includes painting over Andy’s name, a turn of events that coincides with Woody’s waning faith in the relationship he’s built his life on.

Even in Toy Story 4, when Woody belongs to Bonnie, he still has Andy’s name on his boot. This checks out, as this story is all about accepting that he can’t recreate with Bonnie what he had with Andy.

Fire in Frankenstein

Fire (and its relatives, like lightning) comes up a lot in Frankenstein, including an indirect reference in the full title, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

For folks like me who get their myths all scrambled, Prometheus was the dude who stole fire from the gods and gave it to the humans. If you’ve ever accidentally incinerated your s’more, you know that fire can sustain and destroy in equal measure. That’s why Prometheus’s gift of fire led to both big advancements and big problems, which is the whole concept behind Frankenstein.

When fire, lightning, and light appear in the novel, it’s in key moments of either enlightenment or catastrophe. Or both. This passage narrated by the Monster is particularly direct about it:

“One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a Fire which had been left by some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the warmth I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects!”

How to Use This Powerful Tool in Writing

Now it’s time to take all this new knowledge and apply it to your work in progress. How can you enhance your reader’s experience by adding symbolism to your own writing?

Let’s talk.

Look for What’s Already There

A symbol is such a powerful tool because it reaches readers on a subconscious level. We often experience the emotional effects of a symbol without consciously acknowledging the abstract ideas we’re absorbing.

It can work the same way for authors. We tend to create symbols without realizing it, only seeing them when we read over a draft or find ourselves revisiting an object as we write.

We’ll talk about how you can deliberately create symbolism, but your first job is to review what you’ve written or outlined to see if you’ve already established any symbols.

If anything stands out, take time to figure out what each symbol represents. Think about whether it works better as a one-time thing or a recurring symbol. It’s best to reserve recurring symbolism for big topics like:

• A character’s evolving values or sense of identity
• A character’s internal conflict
• A major theme
• A reminder of what’s at stake in the conflict
• A reminder of the character’s motivations

Once you’ve pinpointed any naturally occurring symbols, you can think about whether you want to add more.

Determine What You Want to Communicate

If you’re coming up with additional symbols, start by thinking about the abstract ideas you want your readers to feel in the depths of their souls.

Do you want them to connect to the isolation your protagonist feels in their dark night of the soul? Is it crucial that they gain a deeper understanding of how that tragic thing in their past still haunts them and motivates their decisions? Do you want to make sure your theme really lands in the pre-climax?

Once you know which goals are important to you, brainstorm symbols that might help. It’s always good to start with elements that already exist in the world of your story or would believably exist there, unless the entire point of the symbol is that something feels out of place.

Everything is fair game: inanimate objects, physical locations, works of art, animals, and even people. 

If nothing seems to fit, you can also draw inspiration from universal symbols. A good ol’ fashioned Google search will turn up a bunch of ideas for you. You can also consult things like dream interpretation books or The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols.

Lay the Groundwork

When it comes time to plug those symbols into your story, think about the best way to help your reader make a connection between these everyday objects and their symbolic meanings.

This is often a matter of proximity. Your character wakes up, remembers that their spouse is gone, and makes a full pot of coffee, anyway. With those two details mentioned back to back—the spouse is gone and the character is still making a full pot—the reader will probably recognize that a full pot of coffee represents hope or clinging to the past, whatever your character’s deal is. 

If readers don’t catch it in this moment, they will when they see your character toss the leftover coffee out every night and still make a full pot the next morning. Or when your character finally makes half a pot. Or when they meet someone new and go to toss the pot in the evening out of habit, only to realize it’s already empty.

What you want to avoid is explaining the symbol. “That full pot represented Chuck’s refusal to accept that things had changed.” Your reader doesn’t need that, and it cancels out any emotional impact your symbol might have had. On that note:

Let the Symbol Do the Talking

Again, one of the biggest benefits of having a symbol is that you don’t have to spell everything out. So don’t. Resist the impulse to say that Chuck threw out the stale coffee and felt lonely. We know. Dude’s pouring a pot of love coffee down the drain. The loneliness is there, in the action.

This continues to be true as a recurring symbol evolves. Let’s say Chuck has a huge, devastating conversation with his ex where it becomes clear that the relationship truly cannot be saved.

Instead of three paragraphs explaining his transition from denial to acceptance, let us see him fill that coffee pot to the brim with water, then stop himself and pour half into the dying potted plant on his windowsill.

Through concrete images, we see the decision to accept his loss and nurture something new.

Don’t Overdo It

If you share my love of symbolism, you might go overboard dreaming up new ways to convey deeper meanings through images and objects. 

It happens. My current work in progress has way more symbols than it needs. And that’s fine, because I’m not on my final draft. By the time I am, I’ll have to pare down, because a manuscript riddled with symbolism feels heavy-handed, like it thinks it’s deeper than it is.

I wish I could give you an ideal number here, but there isn’t one. It’s on a case-by-case basis, and it’s something you and your beta readers will have to figure out together. If your symbols start to upstage the narrative, trim them back a bit. Find other ways to show instead of tell. 

Remember that this device, like all devices, exists to help you tell a better story. 

Do a Deep Dive With Dabble Writer

If you’ve been studying writing for a while, you know symbolism is one of many elements authors have to juggle. From compelling character arcs to convincing red herrings and airtight story structure to an engaging narrative tone, this craft requires the literary equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.

For me, that’s where Dabble comes in.

Dabble Writer is the best novel-writing tool in the game, with genius features to streamline every phase of the planning, writing, and revising process.

I especially love the Plot Grid for keeping track of symbolism. You can add all the columns you need to stay on top of everything from character arcs to locations to recurring symbols. The Grid makes it easy for both Planners and Pantsers to see all their story elements at a glance and ensure that nothing has fallen through the cracks.

Then there are the Character Profiles, the robust Version History capabilities, the option to collaborate with co-authors and editors, and loads more.

Explore all these features yourself for free for 14 days by clicking this link right here. This tool will save your writerly life. And I mean that in the literal sense.