8.06.2013

Symbolism, Friends And What's In Your Trunk?


I had the wonderful opportunity recently to meet up with a couple of authors from the Untethered Realms group, Angela Brown and Graeme Ing, here in San Diego. Over Mexican food and margaritas, the conversation turned naturally to writing and sequels. I was asked if my main character, Indigo Eady, would ever unpack her trunk.
 
For those who haven’t read Givin’ UpThe Ghost, Indigo had just lost her father and was forced to move from America to England to live with an uncle and cousin. She’s welcomed warmly into their home, and yet she refused to unpack the trunk that holds all her belongings. She hasn’t accepted the death of her father emotionally, although she knows intellectually that he’s dead and not coming back. But she’s quite insistent that it isn’t her home and pointblank refuses to unpack, even after six months.

That got me to thinking about symbolism. I acknowledged that Indigo’s trunk is really my trunk. I once lived in a house for five years without hanging a single picture on the wall. It’s true! My reason? It wasn’t my home. (don't judge me, LOL!)

You probably don’t want me to get started on what’s inside my trunk, either. But let’s just say that every once in a while I’ll take something out. Turn it over, study it. Once in a great while, when I’m ready, I’ll toss something in the garbage. But mostly, it goes back in the trunk until I decide to take it out and examine it again. Trust me, there are some things in that trunk that only God and I know about. Those things will never see the light of day.

Here's another example. Are there any Friends fans out there? If you’re a fan, you know that Monica is the quintessential perfectionist. Everything she does has to be perfect--and clean--and organized. There’s one episode after she and Chandler got together. He moved in with her and of course he accepted her organizational quirkiness. But Monica had one locked closet and nobody was allowed to see inside. So of course Chandler broke in and got the shock of his life: a hoarder’s closet, stuffed with clutter and crap and a monolithic mess that Monica would never have allowed out in the open. Chandler teased her that she was really a messy person at heart. Monica told him he wasn't supposed to see it. She claimed that while organizing, the stuff in the closet didn't fit into any category.
 
And so symbolism is a way of addressing an issue but still keeping it at a safe distance, or even hidden. Sometimes it's conscious, sometimes not.
 
We're human. I think we all have our issues (I mean, someone who won't hang pictures? WTH?!), and that we all have a trunk or closet or somewhere we hide the crap we don't want anyone to see. 

These issues spill over into our writing.

Maybe it's even the reason we write.
 
Writing and Symbolism are perfect ways to hide things in plain sight.  

Do you use symbolism in your writing?

Care to share?
 
Dare I ask if you have a trunk or closet?


 

25 comments:

  1. Byron claims a need for privacy that's really an attempt to keep anyone from getting close. That's about as symbolic as I get.
    We've cleaned out most of our boxes in the closets. If I don't need it within a year, time to chuck it.

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  2. It was 5 years before I decorated my first house. I was young and hadn't yet found the "right" pieces to hang. I didn't just want to put up any old thing. I wanted to love it (and afford it). :)

    Now, my house is brimming with much-loved stuff--all of them filled with memories.

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  3. I painted some of my rooms a few years ago and I've still never re-hung some of the paintings. Not because I dislike them, but for some reason I just don't do it! I also have a closet that I am kind of afraid to open LOL.

    Creative and interesting post, Gwen.

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  4. Alex, I've tried chucking things, I really have. Somehow they end up right back in the box!

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  5. Maria, and that's sort of the point, isn't it? The stuff on the walls have to be uniquely you, to be loved and cherished.

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  6. Julie, this is just eerie. 2 out of 3 commenters had blank walls for a number of years! I'm not the only one! Is it bad that I feel so much better, LOL?

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  7. I still haven't unpacked some of my things I brought home from college. It's been almost eight years since then. I just shoved them in the closet and never got around to cleaning the closet out.

    And my parents still refuse to buy curtains. We've lived in the house for 20+ years.

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  8. Science fiction and fantasy are often one big symbolism. :)

    I have stuff that has never been unpacked since we moved.

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  9. Cherie, now you gotta have curtains. How else are you supposed to hide behind them?

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  10. Me, too, Mary. Both symbolically and literally, LOL!

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  11. Well said! And, no, I'm not judging you at all for not decorating your walls for five years. In fact, I can see where it would be a totally reasonable (if subconscious) decision.

    As for symbolism, my favorite is the stuff that you don't even realize is in there. Every once in a while a reader will tell me, "Wow. I love how ____ symbolizes ____." And I think, "What?" Until I see that it actually does, and I didn't even realize I put all that in there. It's scary but also fun.

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  12. I like my stuff everywhere and since I'm a photographer, that means the walls get covered immediately.

    When we became foster parents, one room had to become a bedroom. That was my office and we had to empty it of almost everything. We threw out so much. It was actually really therapeutic. (We're no longer foster parents and I'm back in my office with twice the stuff. Not sure how that happened. LOL!)

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  13. I think we all have at least a symbolic trunk - I mean, who doesn't have stuff that's just between themselves and God? I think it's a universal part of life that shows up in individual ways, and it definitely spills over into our writing, which spills through our characters and their individual trunks.

    I don't think I've gone more than 48 hours living in a house or apartment without hanging something on the wall . . . although I guess I do survive vacations without doing that. It helps that most places have something hanging on the wall - I don't like bare walls - they remind me of hospitals ... and yes there's a backstory there.

    More of a spent-too-much-time-in-hospitals-with-older-grandparents kind of story than a secret trunk kind of backstory.

    Symbols drive a story forward and can be personal or universal, or a little bit of both.

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  14. Caryn, symbolism really does have a way of creeping in. I didn't deliberately set out to write symbolically about the whole "not my home" thing, but there it is, and absolutely applicable to my experience.

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  15. That's funny, Diane. At my last house, the only photo's I hung on the walls were black & whites of my husband and daughter that I did in college. They're pretty good and came from the heart. They mean something, so maybe that's the difference.

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  16. Tyrean, writing can be very healing, but I never really applied that to myself. I guess I should.

    Bare walls = hospitals. It makes sense to me. Glad I didn't put those two together back then, LOL!

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  17. i watched a friends the other day, i loved that show! and the hoarders closet is a great symbolic reference (and a hilarious episode!)

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  18. Tara, I've been watching Friends lately. It was such a fun show.

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  19. I hoarded things in boxes for years. It's only recently when we moved into the house we're in now that I've been slowly clearing out the clutter. I actually had four boxes just of old letters and cards. I never looked at them. One day, I just recycled. I felt lighter for it.

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  20. See, Christine? Letting go of the clutter means letting go of the past. I really struggle with that. Having said that, I did go through my things a few years ago and tossed a bunch of stuff.

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  21. I probably assign sentimental meaning to WAAAY more things than actually have that. Makes it tough to get rid of somethings that seem like obvious choices. ;)

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  22. Nicole, a hoarder, huh? I used to be a hoarder of "things" but not so much any more. Now I just hoard "issues." Ah well...I think I'm progressing, though. I did hang pictures at my last house. Only of my husband and daughter, but still...

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  23. I laugh at the Friends episode with Tom Selleck when Monica couldn't stand having messy sheets after a quickie. I think everyone has certain quirks.

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  24. Cathrina, I've been watching Friends a lot lately, and they all have different quirks, LOL!

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  25. Cherie & Gwen. No curtains? Must have been a reason. Now, you've got me thinking about that. Why no curtains?

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