Symbolism in Literature – The Sea

Full fathom five thy father lies;  

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.  

In literature, symbols are often settings, images or other motifs that stand in for bigger ideas.  Poets, novelists and dramatists use then to give their work meaning and resonance.

In this new occasional series, I'm going to look at some of the symbols used in this way, and ask why writers have chosen to use them. I'm starting with the sea, because it is a primal symbol of life. The ocean is of course, where we believe the beginning of life on Earth was formed.

The Sea, the Sea                                                                                                      Iris Murchoch was for a long time my favourite writer. I referenced her in my third novel Beneath the Tor. Goodness, love and freedom were lifelong philosophical concerns of Murdoch and she uses the theme of 'virtue and perception' in her Booker Prize winner The Sea, the Sea, her 18th novel.

Murdoch's  protagonist, Charles Arrowby, has bought Shruff End, a house with no electricity perched at the edge of the North Sea.  Arrowby is a pompous figure with weird tastes in food, difficult to like, but he quickly obsessed me as I got into the book. He wants to: become a hermit: put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good. Sadly, Arrowby soon finds out just how hard it is to be good.

The Sea, the Sea  is said to be inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The irritating Arrowby echoes Prospero’s attempt to transform magic into spirit, echoed, by Ariel's Song, which opened this blogpost. Martin Amis said that Murdoch…believes in everything: true love, veridical visions, magic, monsters, pagan spirits…Arrowby imagines the sea below his house to be the home of a hideous monster, and Murdoch brilliantly depicts the distinction between imagination and fantasy, and the vital importance of negotiating these dangers. Of course, it's bound to end with a drowning – rather like…

David Copperfield                                                                                                   One of the best-known writers to use the sea regularly as a symbol was Charles Dickens. (He also loved to feature rivers, especially the Thames, in his stories, but that, as they say, is another blogpost.) As a child, he'd visit Yarmouth. Towards the end of the book, David Copperfield remembers the sea off Yarmouth as connected to the disasters of his youth, and an element that takes loved ones away. Dickens is

using the sea as an unknown and powerful force in the lives of the characters, beyond human control. Towards the end of the book he returns.to find his old schoolmate drowned; And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.

The World Is Too Much With Us                                                                                  

Wordsworth's lovely sonnet uses the sea to symbolise the wild, passionate, creative force of Nature:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. 

The Life of Pi                                                                                                                                    

The Man-Booker winner in 2002, is mostly set on the ocean as Pi struggles to survive a hazardous journey. The sea symbolises one of the main themes of the book –  the will to live – while the lifeboat Pi is in with the tiger Richard Parker, would symbolise a place of both danger and safety. This is a complex novel, which uses fantasy, magical realism and meta-fiction to weave its tale.

Moby-Dick                                                                                                                     A novel set almost fully on the ocean waves of the 19th century, Moby-Dick has a myriad of themes, especially that of revenge and pursuit. But Herman Melville uses the sea to represent some very subtle ideas, including the way Ishmael's journey in the whaler is also a metaphorical voyage of understanding, Melville doesn't stop there though; the sea becomes beauty and chaos, instability and mystery. You can read more about the book here.

The Old Man and the Sea                                                                                          An epic two-day battle between man and a marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, was
one of the first adult books I read as a growing child. Its real significance was probably lost on me at the time, but  there are deeper meanings behind Hemingway's story than just a tussle with a fish. The old man is said to represent humanity, while the fish signifies achievement or purpose in life. According to Hemingway, man is most worthy in isolation because he has to work and survive on his own. The sea, in the novel, allows Hemmingway to describe the struggles all of us endure in life.

I Started Early                                                                                                           Finally there is the idea that the sea, in all its wild fierceness can represent sexuality. Look at this poem by Emily Dickinson, which starts as innocently as you like...

I started Early – Took my Dog –

And visited the Sea –

The Mermaids in the Basement

Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor.  

Extended Hempen Hands –

Presuming Me to be a Mouse –

Aground –  upon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide

Went past my simple Shoe –

And past my Apron – and my Belt

And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –

As wholly as a Dew

Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –

And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –

I felt His Silver Heel

Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes

Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –

No One He seemed to know –

And bowing – with a Mighty look –

At me – The Sea withdrew –

 Mermaids in the basement? Or the subconscious perhaps? The hard, upright frigates? The sea itself might awaken sexual feelings as you watch it drive itself forward, 'past your bodice'  but for the 19th century lady, the Solid Town of social expectation would make the those desires withdraw...

On the Gallows                                                                                                        
I've used the theme of the sea in my writing, especially On the Gallows, the second of the Shaman Mysteries, in which a young girl's body is found in the sea off Bridgewater Bay... 

Ahead was a luminous sheen of grey. The Bristol Channel. 

 Like Ellen, I examined the desolation of the bay. The tide was low, and the stone causeway could be seen clearly, a formation of flattened boulders with a squiggly pattern across the far shore made up of shingle, rock and mudflat. At its far edge was a ridge where hardness fell away into sea. A cold wind blew in, but the water only rippled slightly, as if it might be on its way to freezing. 

  From the first section of deep water rose a skeletal structure, ragged with seaweed. It felt as bare as bones, and the wind moaned through it. Or was it the cooling tower that moaned, in sheer misery of its location?  

 The cooling tower could have been a gallows, a complex gallows. I could see how it might trap a victim, cling on to her. I kept staring over the bay as the light failed, desperate to get my thoughts into shape, but my heart was racing too fast, keeping in time with the wind that flapped in my ears. 

 'It’s odd,' said Ellen, 'because I didn’t think about it, when we agreed a time on the phone. But this was when I came here. The light was almost gone.'

 I nodded. I’d known that. It was how I’d wanted it. 'What were you doing,' I said, desperate to ask if she’d come in stilettos on that occasion. 'Walking the dog, something like that?'

'They didn’t tell you?'

'No, The police never pass on personal details.'

She began walking towards the beach as if it was beckoning her. When she got to the fence, she stopped, pulled her hands out of her pockets and gripped it. 

'Looking back, I can see just how crazy I’d got. But it was a day out of hell. Complete hell. Had some hell-like days in my life, but God, not many worse than that.' 

Have fun in your own ideas and try using the symbology of the sea in your  next piece of writing – let us know how you've done so by adding comments below this post.

To read more blogposts about symbolism in literature, click here