It's All Up to You...

        This chapter brought back so many memories for me. It took me back to ninth grade when we learned about symbolic archetypes, to tenth grade, making charts about archetypes. Now here I am making this journal entry, reading a chapter on symbols, and so on. The reason why I keep saying archetypes? Because that's how I learned to identify symbols: archetypes provide the meaning of a symbol, a myth, an image, a charcter, or a simple theme. They especially come to great uses when it comes to literature which is interesting that Foster mentioned the river; I've studied it before. Not only do rivers mean the danger or safety but they also present new territory;it may represent human life or time passing as we follow the river from its source to its mouth. Rivers to me represent a journey that a person will pursue or is going on, or perhaps that person was already on his/her river? It really just depends.

        Caves? Caves are weird. Caves to me are always scary and dark, forboding, uninviting, all of the below . Of course, nothing good comes out of a cave, well unless it is ice crystals of course. Looking at my archetype/symbol chart (that I've had ever since sophmore year), it references caves/tunnels as a feminine force, the subconscious place where eveil hides. Feminine? Caves can be both genders and especially represent what we can be hiding.
         Moreover, lets set aside the whole definition of archetypes and symbols thing, and talk about one of my favorite stories, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. this story was not only symbolic, but there is one symbol that portrayed a meaning to me, and that's the glass castle that always brought up in the story. The castle to me represented the dreams that Jeanette's family would never get to, like a fantasy. Her father always promised that hew ould build that castle and that their family would live to prosperity, but they always lived in penury. Also, not only does that castle mean something to the family, but it is a dream for each member in the family; each person has their own castle they want to build. Jeanette's castle is to be a writer in New York , her sisiter's castle (if I am not mistaken), is to get into the school of her dreams, her dad's castle, is to get over his drinking addiction and build the castle for his family ,and her mother's castle is to become a well known artist. That's what it all seemed to me. In perspective, everyone has their own castle to build. My castle is to go to one of the colleges of my dreams, go to a top medical school, and pursus in my music background, and so on.
        So there you have it; Foster is right. Symbols  are really how you see them and it is up to YOU to determine what it would mean. I can't imagine the thousands of different imaginations interpreting how we see just one element or what it means. It's crazy but true and so worth it . Our imaginations give us hope that we will understand or relate to what the author is trying to tell us, or anything. Like I said, it's all based off of your perspective. What's your castle?


                                                                         <3, Arlesia :)