According to Oxford dictionary, symbolism is defied as “the use of symbols to represent ideas, especially in art and literature”. It means that there exist an essential relationship between symbol and symbolism. Thus, it is necessary to know something about the knowledge of symbol before learning about the symbolism in the movie.
In ancient Greek, the appearance of symbol is when two different people hold a half of board as a token for the next meeting after one board pieces into two parts. Gradually, it extends to a technique of expression to convey certain feelings.(Lv Haiyan,2009)The definition of symbol in Webster’s Dictionary is "something that stands for something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance…..a visible sign of something invisible".(Wang Xiaojing, 2013)In this sense, Symbol refers that one represents or implies the other, especially tangible things for the intangible.
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Universal symbols refer to symbolic meanings are generally accepted by the public for having the same characteristics with inherent meanings. For example, rose is a symbol of love because of the sacrifice for love in the legend of ancient Greek. However, in terms of the context symbols, it is only in a certain background that people can understand its real implication. Take Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne for example, the letter “A” has been attached special meanings which can be understood by connecting with the background of this novel while it is just one of the letters of the alphabet for the people who have not read this