In Jane Yolen's dystopian short story “Winters King” about a special young boy’s story of his life after his father dies and how his mother remarries to an abusive father, then dies, so the boy runs away. She focuses deeply on symbolism to show how life is precious as she compares life to coins. She also uses symbolism with the season winter to represent death.
From the very beginning you know something's up with the coins, and the author gets you thinking that they might represent things such as a prize, cost, or life. Such as on page 1 where it talks about how the father, “sang for pennies and smiles from strangers,” This shows how it represents life by showing how the father lives by earning pennies.That's his job and without his job he probably won’t survive. So since he has the pennies he lives on in life.
Another place these coins come up is on page 2 where it says “She nodded to her husband, who paid the midwife twice over from his meager pockets, six copper coins.” This brings up the idea that the coins are precious. But as you read further down the page it says “ An icy branch broke from a tree and smashed in the side of her head. In the morning when she was found, she was frozen solid. The money she had clutched in her hand was gone.” The midwife's life was taken as was her life taken from her. So since the
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Winter usually represents a type of represents sadness. In this story, it represents also represents a type of sadness because winter has always been cold, sunless, wet, and dark. This is true because everyone who died in this story died in the winter. Even though it says “As . . . in the winter he was an active child, his eyes were bright and quick to laugh. But once spring came, the buds in his cheeks faded, even as the ones on the boughs grew big.” Though people might be happy at one point but one also could be saddened in the happiest times such as winter for the