The Flag
“The Purple Children” features a character known as the Major who is everything that someone known only by that appellation might be expected to be. He is one of those types for whom a flag is no mere metaphorical symbol that the rest of us realize it can only be. It is in the Major’s view of the flag as something tangible and literal that it becomes a symbol of something entirely different, psychotic patriotism:
“afloat upon the restless wind, the expected flag, an enemy that could not be imprisoned or exiled or killed, and certainly could never be silenced.”
Mirrors
“The Man Who Met Himself” is constructed on a bedrock foundation of symbolic significance of mirrors. The mirror is situated as a symbol that foreshadows its later literal significance to the plot when the narrator describes the title character as “a mirror of unassuming respectability.” This symbolism will, appropriately, be doubled back upon the character in the climax when a large Venetian mirror comes to play a central role in the solution of the mystery. The mirror thus fosters a symbolic meaning over the title, characterization and plot.
“The Golden Girl”
The title character is also situated as a symbol of foreshadowing. She is described by the narrator as a beautiful golden-haired girl who is a precious thing which could not be saved. As symbol this directly connects her with the literal precious gold she is smuggling which could not be saved from sinking to the bottom of the ocean, carrying her body down with it.
Seal-Wives
These creatures of Scottish myth bear something in relation to mermaids, but are more like a darkly sinister version. The come from the sea to marry a mortal, but inexorably are drawn back to the water, leaving the men behind. “I am a Seagull” almost certainly qualifies as one of the stranger stories in the author’s canon, lyrical and gothic and laden with cryptic meanings, but ultimately the symbolism of the seal-wives are made clear right from the start: they represent the inevitability of happy marriages eventually turning sour.
A Grain of Mustard Seed”
There is no mention of mustard, seeds or grain in this story because the title is entirely symbolic. More than just symbolic, the grain of mustard seed is a symbol that gains meaning through allusion. If one fails to make the connection to the allusion, the whole point of the title falls apart. The allusion is the parable told by Jesus in the Bible about great things growing from the smallest seeds. The symbolism connects to the story’s revelation at the end about how simple acts of kindness by one man toward grew into consequential impacts upon the lives of both men and their families in ways that could never have been foreseen.
