Question

Tell me short summary of symbols and signs book by vladimir nakabov.

Answer 1

Short summary about signs and symbols

Signs and Symbols" is a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and first published, May 15, 1948 in The New Yorker and then in Nabokov's Dozen. In The New Yorker, the story was published under the title "Symbols and Signs", a decision by the editor Katharine White..

The story opens with the elderly couple taking a long, painful journey to visit their son in the sanitarium he lives in. The story is narrated almost entirely from the perspective of the elderly parents as they make their way by train and bus through stormy weather to the facility where their son is kept only to be told that he is not well enough to visit.

“There they waited again, and instead of their boy, shuffling into the room, as he usually did (his poor face sullen, confused, ill-shaven, and blotched with acne), a nurse they knew and did not care for appeared at last and brightly explained that he had again attempted to take his life. He was all right, she said, but a visit from his parents might disturb him.

“And so they begin the miserable return voyage home, the occurrence of lost power, late bus, storming weather, injured bird, familiar faces of the past, and misplaced keys all ill omens of the day building like an argument in their consciousness. Everywhere around them, the mother see signs and symbols as she struggles to make sense of the world around her and what meanings her observations hold. In the middle of the story, the narrator pseudo-shifts, and we get a peak into the son’s world. In his world, he is in an advanced state of narcissistic paranoia struggling to make sense of the world around him and simultaneously sure that every minutia exists to judge and condemn him.

“Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme. All around him, there are spies. Some of them are detached observers, like glass surfaces and still pools; others, such as coats in store windows, are prejudiced witnesses, lynchers at heart; others, again (running water, storms), are hysterical to the point of insanity, have a distorted opinion of him, and grotesquely misinterpret his actions.

“It is between these two narrators that we see the existential crisis that all of us face. Mr. Nabokov highlights the mundane through the extreme. The son represents the need each of us has to make sense of our surroundings. We all perceive the universe through our individual filters, a form of mini-narcissim that is inescapable for all of humanity. We will never be wholly objective in our perceptions of the world because it is invariably filtered through our eyes, ears and brain. We struggle to relate each person we meet, each object we encounter, each sound we hear with our internal composition of the world. We do this largely unconsciously, not necessarily giving specific thought to our own sets of signs and symbols as we pass through life. We might look at the dying bird or the late bus and wonder if it is an ill omen or a sign, like the elderly mother in the story, or we might pick up on a totally separate set of observations and attribute entirely different meanings to them.

We are not the slaves to “referential mania” as the son in the story is, but his inability to filter these signs, which appear to him as a constant barrage that must be decoded, highlights in a way our own easy ability to find meaning in life in ways that allows us the sanity to continue living it. With all of the son’s intellect, he is powerless to regulate this basic filter that keeps humanity stable.

Now I end the story , I include all the important matters and issues about the story. I hope this will be clear to you ? ?