Reading Novels Like A Professor: Chapter 10 – Clarissa’s Flowers

Reading Novels Like A Professor: Chapter 10 – Clarissa’s Flowers: Identify character emblems in the novel you are reading. Explain the effect of these emblems. How is the character revealed by the items tha...

“This is why we readers get the big money. From the merest threads, from hints and allegations, we weave something we believe to be solid and permanent. We find reality in characters who never existed, find internal motivation and emotion from the things they carry, construct whole people from outlines and sketches” (130). This quotation is from Thomas C. Foster’s book, How to Read Novels like a Professor. In the quote Foster is explaining the usage of character emblems within novels. Character emblems are objects that identify a character. Somewhat like indirect characterization, but instead of the identifier being another character, it is an object. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment, character emblems are present in the second chapter of Part 2. After Raskolnikov murders the two women and takes some of their valuable trinkets, he becomes paranoid and starts frantically searching for hiding places. Roaskolnikov first puts them in a hole in his apartment but later realizes that it would be easy for someone to come in a spot the valuables. Then he gets the idea of tossing them into the canal, but realizes, “What if the boxes were to float instead of sinking” (106)? Raskolnikov is troubled with this problem for a while until he finds a large stone and buries the stolen goods under it. The stolen goods are emblems of Raskolnikovs guilt. The fact that Raskolnikov is also trying to hide the stolen good represents him trying to suppress the guilt that he has for committing the crime. The man does not throw them into the canal because they will float to the top allowing everyone to see. This represents the fact that Raskolnikov must not show any signs of his guilt or fear, because he will be found out if he does. The fact that Raskolnikov buried the goods under a stone represents how ready he is to just smother all guilt and consciousness of the entire situation. Character emblems are very useful to the reader. They allow the reader to understand characters a bit more without having to be spoon-fed the information.
-Conner Furr