Why Can't a Literary Rose Just Be a Rose?

I'm having trouble with the reading for class this week. It's a problem that I had sensed coming, but have managed to cleverly circumvent up until now. It's the reason that I suddenly remember with perfect clarity why I hated literature classes in the past.

Symbolism.

I had noticed that I don't read the stories quite the same way as the rest of the class seemed to early on in the quarter. Last week, it really hit me why. As we sat and discussed the reading we did for the week, I was surprised to find that I had no idea where these people (my instructor included) were getting this stuff. Did we really read the same stories? They were talking about socio-economic struggles, religious oppression, and materialism in stories where I simply read about the disappointment and understanding that comes from first love and taking responsibility for one's own decisions and actions.

It occurred to me that I don't read as the literary types of the world reads. I don't see symbols and underlying themes of the world in general; I see deep-set emotions and thought patterns and the psychological response to the society in which the character is involved. I read as a Social Psychologist.

Take, for example, one of the stories that we are reading for our next class. It's a story called "A Rose For Emily". Apparently many critics and readers find this story to be symbolic and profound, demonstrating the decline of the old-fashioned Southern culture and the changing ideas of womanhood. Also creepy and weird. Not me, though. I find it tragic and sad and my heart aches for the character to whom most everyone else gives the reaction of "ew... weird..." I see the aging and failing grace of the character to represent the natural passing of time rather than the degradation of Southern values. I cried for the loneliness and disappointment she must have felt to end up in the situation she was in instead of analyzing what the author was trying to convey with the colors of the room (by the way, there are no roses, only a rosy colored room , in the story, so even the symbolism of the title is lost on me).

It seems that my brain has no room or tolerance for the abstract, which comes as a surprise to those who know me as a "poetic soul". I might have a poet's soul, but I have the brain of a psychiatrist. My poetry is limited to wording and imagery; I don't write symbolic poems, I write colorful and/or emotional ones.

It's not that I'm not putting in an effort. I try really hard to see those things in the stories. I listen in class and try to force my brain to think like the rest of them. But mostly it just annoys me to have these discussions. Not because of the work that has to go into it to pull a story apart (dissecting human relationships and behaviors requires a lot of work too), but more because I feel like the story loses the beauty of the human aspect when it's pulled apart like that. If we are so busy finding the author's nod to civil disobedience in the underlying theme, we forget to see the tragic beauty of the woman in the story who is so disappointed and sad that she wastes away like the corpse of her long lost lover.

I'm not sure why this is so hard for me. The only thing I can figure is that understanding sybolism means having an understanding of the time and culture that the story was written in. Which all comes down to an understanding of history. My mind shuts down anything historical, political, or religiously debatable. So therefore, I must be pre-programmed to not get it....

On the brightside, I now know that I made the right decision way back when by changing my major from English to Sociology. I will never again doubt my college path.