Symbol

=__**Symbol**__=

A symbol is basically anything that is used in order to represent something else. Images, phrases, words, sayings, and many others are used as symbols, that carry a hidden message. A common use of symbols is to express feelings of characters in certain situations. For example, describing a character contemplating the rain fall would show that they are sad.

Examples in //Heat and Dust://
 * 1) " I now wear a pair of baggy trousers tied with a string at the waist such as the Punjabi peasant women wear, and their kind of knee-length shirt. I also have a pair of Indian sandals which I can shuffle off and leave on thresholds like everyone else" p.9

The fact that she is now wearing Indian clothes, symbolizes the narrator's transition to adapting to India. Jhabvala uses this small visual change in order to emphasize how she is leaving behind her English life to begin living in an Indian style. The author does not directly state this and thus uses her change in wardrobe as a symbol.

2. " As the glow faded and sky and air and water turned pale silver and the birds fell asleep in the dark trees and now only soundless bats flitted black across the silver sky: at that lovely hour she died." p 115

The description of scenery symbolizes the last moments of Leelavati. "the glow faded and sky and air and water turned pale silver and the birds fell asleep" reflects how slowly Leelavati was peacefully dying. The description of scenery is often used mirror how an action happened, in this case it is the death of Leelavati and how it is peaceful.