Fandom High School

Students were back in the Danger Shop today, with class taking place on the edge of a tall cliff, easily miles above the valley floor and not too far from billowing clouds, white and fluffy. For all that they were very high up, the air was warm and easy to breathe; Cindy was only willing to sacrifice so much comfort for verisimilitude. There was a large blanket for the class to sit upon, and surrounding that blanket were several flocks of birds.

( Probably an easy guess about what today's class was all about, yes? )

Throughout the last few sentences, Cindy had been walking steadily backwards, heading towards the edge of the cliff. "Today," she finished, "we're going to explore that concept of freedom head-on." She took a final step, her foot hovering over the great void for a moment, and then she was gone, plummeting over the edge. A moment later, she was back in view, flying back up the other side of the cliff and over towards the blanket. "Choose one of the other species of bird that I mentioned, try to take a guess what it symbolizes and why you think that, and then you can get a chance to fly yourself."

Cindy had a DVD ready for the students this week. This movie, she explained, is rich in a lot of the symbolism we touched on previously during the semester, including a trip to Hell and a lot of color imagery. While you watch it, please make note of some of the symbols you notice and what they mean in the film. Feel free to work with partners."

Cinderella had missed last week to take care of some...business...in Prague and then had stayed in the city for awhile to relax. Truth be told, she was starting to miss the excitement of her real job--though Fandom was often plenty exciting on it's own. But, for now, back to her cover as Cindy Perrault, literature professor.

"I hope you're ready to get back to work after two free weeks," she said as her class filed in. "We're moving on to the symbolism of colors today. ( Oooh. The colooooors )The use of colors as symbols begins at birth, when baby girls are swaddled in pink blankets and baby boys in blue. That's a relatively new meaning, by the way, gaining cache only in the past two hundred years. Before then, pink was considered a manly color, because it was a hue of red, symbolizing passion and violence. What colors mean, which many people think of as innate, are just as fluid and prone to shifting as any other kind of symbol."

Cindy smiled. "Just something for you to think about."

Today, the class met in the classroom yet again. The Danger Shop was still unsuitable for their class material, and, honestly, it was entirely possible this week was probably unsuitable for the class material. Honestly, Cindy had even given thought to changing the lesson plan, but then she realized that this might be the only class that would be able to keep their attention today.

"So last week, we discussed how sex is almost always symbolic of something else in literature," Cindy said, as the bell rang. She was doing her best to present a facade that she was completely unfazed by the pollen. Last night had helped with that some, but the topic at hand sure wasn't. "Sex can stand in for rebellion, for life, for death, for power. Anything at all, except sex. But that's okay: everything else makes up for it. There's tons of sex in literature, it's just not always evident at first glance." ( Keep reading to find it. )

"For our class activity today, you're going to write a sex scene. One that contains no sex at all. Pick your metaphor and run with it. It doesn't have to be about two people--Paul's rocking-horse and Thorogood's keys certainly weren't. But you have to write something with sex as a central theme that doesn't explicitly mention sex anywhere. You may begin."

[All links should be SFW, though both the clip and the song have sound.]

The Danger Shop was set up to look like a classroom today, and on the blackboard, the students would see a quote written on the blackboard:

Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella. ~Terri Guillemets

"Terri got it in one," Cindy said from her perch on her desk as soon as the bell rang. "Weather, in novels anyway, are almost always a metaphor for something. "

( Rain, rain, go away. )

Cindy stood up and opened the classroom door. Outside was a lovely summer day, golden and warm. She closed it, reopened it, and suddenly there was a dense fog, the kind where you could only see a few feet ahead of you. "But rain is only one of the types of weather that we'll read about in novels. Together, we can talk about some of the others. Meet me in the Perk--" What, she loved coffee, okay? "--and we'll talk about the others."

And then Cindy vanished from the room.

Class met in the Danger Shop today, though when they stepped through the door, they'd find themselves outside the gates of the school. The gates themselves were closed, and the only sign of Cindy was in fact a literal sign; fastened to the gates was a sheet of paper that said Meet me at The Perk.

Apparently, they needed to travel a bit to enjoy the privilege of a lecture. But at least there would coffee at the end!

After their adventures getting into town, they would find Cindy sitting inside, sipping a peppermint mocha. "Glad to see you all arrived," she said. "Get yourself something warm to drink and let's talk about that quest you just went on." She smiled at them. "Oh, didn't you know? ( All trips are quests. All birds are ducks. )

She finished her mocha and set the empty cup back on the table, careful not to obscure her lecture notes. "So, let's break down your quest to get here." She pulled out a book of fairy tales and held it up for them. "Thinking traditionally, a quest involves a knight, a goal or 'Holy Grail', a dangerous road, a dragon or two, an evil knight, and a prince or princess. What parts of your walk corresponded to which parts of the quest? Was this a true quest at all?"

[Please wait for the OCD is up!]

This was the second time Cindy had taught this class and this time it was for a much smaller group. Which meant it was fortunate she'd already been planning on changing a few things up, because treating this like a normal, full-sized lecture would just be stupid.

"Hey," she said, looking and sounding much more casual than she might otherwise have. There was only one new name on her roster this semester and only five students. Sticking to excessive formality would also be stupid. "Welcome to to Is a Cigar Just a Cigar? This is a class about symbolism, not smoking, and if any of you were horribly misled, I suggest you suck it up and enjoy the class anyway."

Okay, while she wasn't going to reuse all the material, she liked that joke.

"There are only a few of us here today, so I'm going to skip over the usual introductions; I know most of you, which means it's pretty easy to put a face to the name I didn't recognize." She gave Natalie a brief smile if she was there and continued right along. "You're all old enough that you can handle personal introductions if you don't know one another. And smart enough that if introductions aren't your style, I have every faith that you'll pick up one another's names before too many weeks have passed."

Seriously. Five students. Not hard.

"At their most basic, symbols are things that stand in for something else. They are so heavily ingrained in our cultural consciousness that when we see a particularly well-known symbol, we immediately think of what that symbol represents, paying little to no attention to what the actual object or image that we are looking at, even though most symbols have little to nothing in common with the concept it is representing. For example, in current Western culture, what is the easiest way to signal the intent to surrender?" She tapped the blackboard, where she'd drawn a flag in white chalk. "Waving a white flag. In fact, this symbol is so well-known, people needn't worry about not having a flag handy to get their meaning across. Almost anything white will serve: a sock, a pillowcase, a piece of paper, a bra. Whatever. What we have here is a series of symbols: a white shirt symbolizing a white flag symbolizing surrender. Symbols aren't stagnant or static; they change with the times and constantly evolve."

( Snipped for lecture and vulgar hand gestures! )

"Today, we've gone over two ways to be insulting towards someone with only a vague gesture; again, one that has no real relation to the sentiment expressed." Okay, so the meaning the Greeks gave the middle finger had a slight relation, but Cindy was going to let them find that out on their own if they were so inclined. "So what are some other symbols we have in our various cultures that have a very definitive meaning that is divorced from the actual physical gesture? Vulgar or innocent, whatever you feel comfortable with, and how often you've used it--or seen it used--in your own life."

Even after a night spent dancing at some kind of imaginary ball and a morning of only hotel coffee, Cindy had been prepared to brave the walk to school to be there for her class.

Upon seeing what had sprung up around the school over night, however, Cindy got one whiff of it, muttered "Oh hell no," and spun on her heel to head home. Fortunately, she'd gotten up early in case of delays, which meant she had plenty of time to get an email out.

To: [Cigar Class roster]
From: c.perrault@fandomhigh.net
Re: Class Canceled

Hey all,

In light of missing students and other assorted weirdness, no class today. Remember, our final is drawing close, so please take the opportunity to study your class notes if you can. I know that at least some of you will be out in all this, so I urge you, please take a buddy and practice basic safety, okay?

Regards,
Cindy

I'm not kidding guys. If you miss the final because you were injured while wandering around in this, I will fail you.

With the holiday fast approaching, Cindy knew that she might have a hard time keeping her students focused on classwork today. Fortunately, the students in class most likely to be distracted would also be at least passing familiar with the symbolism in today's lesson, so hopefully that would all work out.

"Let's start with one of the most famous poems that references seasons," she announced as soon as the bell rang. Handing out a copy so everyone to follow along, she began reciting from memory:
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd."

Papers hand out, she went back to leaning against her desk. "Before we begin the lecture proper, I want you to take a few moments and think about that he's saying in the poem, not just in the lines I recited, but in the entire thing. Figure out what you think the poem means and then I want you to think of why he chose that particular comparison to make. Why a summer day, and not roses or jewels or something else."

Once it seemed like everyone had finished writing, she continued. "So, the four seasons are packed with all sorts of symbolism, much of it similar the whole world round. Our ancestors were tied to the land in a way we've largely moved away from, but the associations they created remain with us still. Spring often symbolizes youth, new beginnings, waking up, renewal, rain and all that it symbolizes, and resurrection. In spring, the world comes to life again. Summer is the easy season. It's early adulthood, when anything is possible--you are no longer held back by youth and not yet held back by growing older. It's sexual and romantic beginnings; though spring is when the land becomes fertile, summer is when we see things begin to truly ripen. It's the season of passion, creativity, and fulfillment. Autumn is middle age; it's wisdom and knowledge, balanced by tiredness and the beginning of the decline. The world is readying itself for winter, so things fade and begin to go back to sleep. But it's also the season of the harvest, of fruitfulness. It's the twilight of life, when things are quiet, easy, and contemplative. Then there is winter. The earth is sleeping now, usually covered in ice and snow where nothing can grow. That is the season of old age, of mourning, bitterness, and resentment. Winter is the season of death, and through that death, we get rebirth, moving back again to springtime."

She'd say something about the cyclical nature of the seasons and symbolism, but then she'd have that damn lion song stuck in her head for days. The students were smart, they could notice it without her, right?

"So now, let's try another round of textual analysis." She had another handout for the class. "Let's look over this one--what is the narrator saying in this poem, and what season does he mean. Feel free to work together in groups if you'd like."

[OCD up]

Cindy wasn't late for class, but only barely, skidding inside just as the bell rang. Taking a moment to compose herself in the doorway, Cindy patted her hair and smiled as if she hadn't just come racing in. "Morning class," she said, walking sedately over to her desk. Which was coffee-free as she hadn't had a chance to hit the Perk before class. Dammit.

"So, last week we finished talking about sex and symbolism," she said, still unaware she'd missed an entire week and some. "Today we're moving on to colors, much to the relief of some of you. Though I do want to compliment those of you who wrote a scene. Many of them were quite good and showed a lot of creativity."

But time to move on. "Colors are used a lot in literature, though it is one of the more culturally-specific topics we'll be discussion. For example, in the West, white is often considered to mean innocence and purity. Brides wear white to show their chastity and virginity, even now in a time when sex before marriage is a common thing. In the East, however, white is a symbol of mourning and loss, with people wearing white to funerals. Many Eastern brides wear red, as a sign of good luck, while in the West, red was often seen as the color of sexual availability. In the musical Jekyll and Hyde, Lucy, a whore, sings the line 'I've always known / I've always said / That silk and lace / In black and red / Will drive a man / right off his head.' Simply by walking on the stage in a costume with those colors, Lucy made her profession clear to the audience."

Though the short skirts had helped with that identification, too.

"Colors have many different meanings, some even contradictory. Green can mean both healthy growing things and envy, which can be a very unhealthy emotion. Black, when worn to a funeral, is a symbol of respect and mourning. When worn by teenagers, it's usually seen as a sign of disaffection with society at large. Yellow usually means 'caution,' whether it's a yellow traffic light, yellow tape around a structure, or the suggestion of cowardice, when someone is called 'yellow.' Color cliches abound, both in our daily life and in literature; how many times have you read or said phrases like 'white as a ghost' or 'feeling a little blue'?"

"By incorporating color into the descriptions, authors are again taking a short cut. By giving a female character with white or pink roses, the author is playing up her girlish innocence. By giving her red roses, however, the author is suggesting that she's a little older, perhaps ready to dabble in adulthood and sexual maturity. A reference to gray skies or blue lets us know what kind of weather to expect, without any more detail than that. Even in movies, the colors used in the scene can be a signal for what the director is trying to make you feel or think. Sepia tones or black and white for flashbacks to the past, blues for sad or depressing scenes, bright yellows and golds for action sequences. Color can be very important to people; sumptuary laws dictated what colors and fabrics different ranks were allowed to wear, and wearing the wrong color could result in fines, imprisonment, or worse. The use of colors as symbols begins at birth, when baby girls are swaddled in pink blankets and baby boys in blue. That's a relatively new meaning, by the way, gaining cache only in the past two hundred years. Before then, pink was considered a manly color, because it was a hue of red, symbolizing passion and violence. What colors mean, which many people think of as innate, are just as fluid and prone to shifting as any other kind of symbol."

Cindy smiled. "Just something for you to think about."

[OCD on its way up]

"So last week, we discussed how sex is almost always symbolic of something else in literature," Cindy said. And they'd handled the discussion so well, too. Their reaction wasn't why she was continuing the theme--after all, it was on the syllabus--but it did make it all the more amusing. "Sex can stand in for rebellion, for life, for death, for power. Anything at all, except sex. But that's okay: everything else makes up for it. There's tons of sex in literature, it's just not always evident at first glance." ( Keep reading to find it. )

"For our class activity today, you're going to write a sex scene. One that contains no sex at all. Pick your metaphor and run with it. It doesn't have to be about two people--Paul's rocking-horse and Thorogood's keys certainly weren't. But you have to write something with sex as a central theme that doesn't explicitly mention sex anywhere. You may begin."

[All links should be SFW, though both the clip and the song have sound.]

When the students filed into the classroom today, they would see another another list on the board today: ( Brief academic discussion of the life of Jesus and literary Christ figures to follow. )

"So, let's take a look at one of the most famous Christ figures in literary history--and believe me, there are a lot of them. But Hemingway's Santiago from Old Man and the Sea is one of the easier Christ figures to pick up on. Today, we'll be discussing the plot of the novel and see how many similarities we can see between Santiago and the list on the board."

[OCD coming up!]

"It's the fourth week of classes and time to deviate slightly from our syllabus," Cindy announced as the bell rang. She held a stack of papers out to Jaime if he was there for him to pass around. "One of the problems with discussing symbolism in literature is that it's very culturally subjective. We discussed that in the first class. Another problem is that the discussion of literature comes with its own unique vocabulary. Today, we're taking a break from our discussion of symbolism to make certain that everyone has the necessary vocabulary to continue our discussion."

At least they weren't diagramming sentences.

"Your TA is passing out a list of common literary terms. It's far more extensive than anything we need for this class, but keeping a reference sheet nearby might come in handy in your future. Feel free to look it over at you leisure, but I'll be going over the most important terms today in class."

"In case anyone missed it, this class is about symbolism, the practice of having one thing standing for both itself and another, deeper meaning. Last week, for example, we talked about travel as a symbol for a quest. In literature then, travel stands both for itself--the literal movement from one place to another--and something else--the quest for self-knowledge and understanding. In many cases, symbolism works by way of allusion, which is a brief reference to a person, place, or event, either real or fictitious. The title of this class is an allusion to a comment made by famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who we'll be discussing in a few weeks. The reason that symbolism and allusion are so closely entwined is because of intertextuality, where the meaning of one text you read is shaped by other texts."

Cindy thought for a moment, looking for an example. With students coming from so many different worlds, there was no shared canon that could reach all of them. "Those of you who have read Shakespeare's Star-Crossed, or have seen one of the movie versions, that play informs how you read other stories about teenagers in love. Because you know what happens in Star-Crossed, consciously or unconsciously, you compare that play to other stories with similar plots and themes. That is intertextuality. If the story you are comparing makes a deliberate reference to Star-Crossed, that's an allusion. With me so far?"

"Simile and metaphor are two types of symbolic or figurative language. They both compare two unlike things together; the difference is that simile uses 'like' or 'as' in it's comparison, and metaphor does not. 'Her lips were like rose petals' is a simile, while 'Her rose petal lips' is a metaphor. Lips and rose petals have very little in common with one another and no one is suggestion that this poor woman, whoever she is, has flowers instead of a mouth. Instead, 'rose petals' become a symbol of softness or the color pink. Allegory, is an entire story made up of one long metaphor. It is both a literal story, in that it is a narrative of linked events, and a symbolic story, in that every event and character has another, greater meaning. Spenser's epic poem Gloriana, is an allegory several times over, in that its story examines the Christian virtues and Elizabethan politics at the same time."

Cindy gave everyone a rueful smile. "I know that's a lot of vocabulary to take in. Any questions?"

[OCD coming up]

A stack of papers sat on Cindy's desk today; as soon as everyone was seated, she nodded at Jaime if he was there to begin passing them out. "This is your syllabus for this semester. Be warned, items may move on a whim--specifically mine--because I feel like teaching something different that day. Everything listed here will be covered and possibly more besides, but the when isn't set in stone, okay?"

"Today, however, we will be following it and discussing where symbols come from. ( When a mommy idea and a daddy idea love one another very much, they need a means of proving it to the world at a glance... )

[Wait for OCD is up. NOW you can start pinging.]