Perhaps the Prose Supposes...

Okay...so I'm gonna take a stab at this.

I feel like I'm relatively wrong every time I try to connect a symbol.  But then, we read in the chapter on symbolism in our textbook that the reader shouldn't even go looking and digging for symbols, that they should be ready for observation throughout reading.  Or, that's what I got out of it, anyways.

To be honest, having finished read this short story by Flannery O'Connor, "A Temple of the Holy Ghost", and now looking through it some more, I don't really see much symbolism.  I think I'm starting to better understand what some of my classmates say when they don't exactly connect with a certain piece of literature.  I enjoyed this one, but I feel like I'm missing this symbolism stuff.

Here goes, though:

-Perhaps Suzan and Joanne represent those unabashed, unashamed aspects we tend to have.

-Perhaps Wendell and Cory represent those naive and innocent aspects we tend to have.

Maybe the reason why these couples were put side-by-side is because Flannery O'Connor wants the two symbols side-by-side: unapologetic sin and soft and sweet purity.  Just a guess.

-Perhaps "the child" represents me.  And so then she would represent you.  Whoever is reading it, that is the child.

And she's watching these two symbols, the girls and the boys, alongside each other.  And so the text that ensues is her thoughts of the actions and reactions.

-Perhaps the circus he-she represents the ambiguity of "right and wrong", how everything isn't as black and white as it was once thought.

-Perhaps the priests who came and shut the circus down represent that "right and wrong" is "black and white".  For them, maybe it's piety or sin.  There is no in-between.

And so the part of the plot that unfolds involving these characters is the clash between these two contrasting thoughts.  The he-she is shut down for trying to tell his-her story, and the priests insist that he-she pushes the knowledge of this "flaw" into darkness and so that the world doesn't have to live with it.

And so maybe, then, the child's reaction (and so our reaction) is simply the learning of this clash and our confusion over this spiritual war.  Maybe, anyways...

Who knows, though?