“No Shoes, No Service”
While he does not explicitly use the sign familiar from many consumer service entities as an example, for purposes of clarity here it will suffice. The author more asserts more broadly than organization rules in society symbolize the way morality is interpreted. The decision to abide by or ignore a rule—as opposed to a law—prohibiting service to those who enter barefoot symbolizes the way that morality works.
Samoan Witch Doctors
The precise specificity of a person of Samoan descent who practices voodoo symbolizes the means by which it becomes practical futility of any absolute determination of rules of moral conduct which be applied to everyone. Ultimately, all rules of morality are provisional in that they are contingent upon certain specific circumstances. For instance, the biblical command “Thou shall not kill” is contingent—morally speaking not legally—upon one’s own life not being endangered.
Hamlet’s Father’s Ghost
Hamlet famously sees the ghost of his dead father in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Which is to say that—as written—Hamlet literally does see the figure of his father exactly as he existed at one particular time and thus a causal connection is made between a memory and the hallucination. Simply seeing it does equate with actual perception, however. And so Hamlet’s father’s ghost symbolizes the way in which the brain can work to create things which are seen, but not actually perceived.
“Brutus is wiser than Caesar”
The author uses this particular phrase to symbolize the distinction between apprehension of ideas expressed through language and comprehension of language itself. This distinction is actually quite complex within the study of linguistics, but it is easily enough dumbed down. If one is informed correctly of the statement being made in a sentence written in a foreign language then one can then interpret the actual meaning of the sentence with just as much facility as anyone capable of reading the sentence.
“Dagger of the mind”
The author turns to Shakespearean tragedy again in the formulation of a symbol. formulated by. That Macbeth sees a dagger floating before his eyes and quite clearly recognizes that it cannot actually be perceived because it is not really there distinguishes him from Hamlet who actually does believe he perceives his father’s ghost. The symbolic difference in the recognition: Hamlet symbolizes the delusions of a defective mind while Macbeth’s awareness the dagger is a delusion is proof that he still retains his sanity at least by that point in the play.
