Research Guides: ENG III / ENGL 1301-1302 (Bishop): Symbolism

1. Sweatpants First: Which Symbols?

Maybe you have some ideas (the watch, the house, the ROSE), but remember: we want to put on our sweatpants before we change into something nicer.

Start with some overview-type articles to get ideas about what the symbols are and what they symbolize.

Bloom's Literature (Infobase) This link opens in a new window
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Search for the story title (e.g. "a rose for emily") (with the quotes)
Your results will start off as Reference results -- these are NOT what you will cite. Filter these (on the right) to Thematic Analysis and see what you see. Again with Topic and Theme filter.

But...

You can get ideas for symbols to focus on by jumping into generic lit crit for the story with a simple search ("a rose for emily"). Just understand you're going to be browsing a bunch of results looking for something interesting, and then you'll still be modifying your search to find additional results per column 2.

Database Tips

Full Text: not seeing where to read an article? Check your filters for a full-text limiter.

Advanced search: AND = less results, more specific. Example: stress AND college students AND finals

Advanced search: NOT = less results, but not as few as AND. Example, school NOT public.

Advanced Search: OR = more results. Example: college OR university.

2. Change Into Something Nicer

Are you ignoring the first column? Don't. This is a process. I've split it up like this for a reason. :)

Why?

Because we want to be able to do better searches than the one-trick-pony "a rose for emily" AND symbol.

Constructing a Search: Some Examples -- Including, but Not Limited To...

"a rose for emily" AND watch

"a rose for emily" AND patriarch*

"a rose for emily" AND (setting OR South*)

Use the Advanced Search. The word(s) after AND would go on the second line of the database's search fields.

Starting to Change Focus

Bloom's Literature (Infobase) This link opens in a new window
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There's also a "criticism" category for search results.
You pick out some likely articles just skimming the results.
However, the advanced search is fickle -- so it's not great for what we really want to do.

Better Options

Literature Resource Center (Gale) This link opens in a new window
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Your search results will default to Literature Criticism for this one.
Literary Reference Source (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Filter your results by Source Type > Literary Criticism.
Literature Criticism Online (Gale) This link opens in a new window
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This part of Gale Lit Crit is focused on short story criticism. It looks very similar to Literature Resource Center, also from Gale, but is actually different!
Includes Short Story Criticism: Presents full-text literary criticism on the works of short-story writers of all nations, cultures, and time periods.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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Big database - many results! Work your way up to this one.