Incest
Incest is used quite literally as part of the mechanism driving the plot, but subtly buried beneath the literal is a symbolic union between rational thought and emotional impulse. The characters who give in to the emotional impulse do not end well. On the other hand, the characters who are consumed by rational thinking can be fairly said to come across as judgmental or emotionally empty. As the title indicates, sympathy is the driving force here and the sympathy those who are kept apart as a result of incest is perhaps the most shocking thing. Sympathetic awareness of the limitations of rational thinking without emotional engagement and emotional impulsivity without logic becomes the symbolic spine unifying all the disparate characters. None are perfect and are all flawed.
Dashes and Capitalization
The typesetting of most copies follows the original to the point in which the first significant word of each new paragraph is set in small caps. This follows throughout the novel until Letter LXIV in which Harrington informs Worthy of the tragedy which climaxes the tale. In addition, Harrington is fond of using dashes—almost to the point of being irritating, but things really take off in this letter: thirteen instances just the first page. The unusual overabundance of words spelled in small caps as well as his commitment to needless dashes become symbols of the ravaged state of his mind as tragedy overwhelms him and he deteriorates into a kind of madness.
“The Power of Sympathy”
The very book that one is reading becomes a symbol within the course of the narrative. Letter XI takes a break from the sentimental romance of the narrative to detail an argumentative debate of sorts over the value of the novel as a literary form. Novels are described by characters as “totally unfit to form the minds of women” and are castigated as works “just calculated to kill time—to attract the attention of the reader for an hour, but leave not idea on the mind.” Within this short bit of almost postmodernist meta-fiction, the novel one is reading becomes a symbolic offering challenging the assault upon the “novel” as a literary form itself.
Letters
This is an example of epistolary literature: a narrative conveyed through letters and correspondence. Although making a comeback of sorts thanks to social media and text messaging, this is a type form of narrative structure which fell significantly out of favor in the 20th century. Although it may seem off-putting and artificial to modern readers, this obstruction is easily overcome by viewing the letter-writing approach in symbolic terms. There is something to be said for the form as a means of expressing thoughts which might otherwise actually require gimmickry or unlikely spilling of intimate truths in order to be conveyed. Another aspect of this form lost upon many contemporary readers is the profound intimacy offered by actual letter writing. When the form of telling a story through writing letters is viewed in modern terms as something akin to a symbolic psychological stream of consciousness, the artificially miraculously disappears and the entire structure is much more easily entered.
Epistolary Republicanism
The means of telling a story through the framework of a variety of competing perspectives is intentionally symbolic on the part of the author. In addition to being feasibly viewed as a kind of symbolic manifestation of lying on the shink’s couch and free-associating innermost thoughts without self-censor, the multiple viewpoints expressing their own individual opinions on the events taking place has been academically interpreted on a scholarship level as symbolizing the republicanism of American democracy in which each person is working from the same level of equality. In addition, the multiple perspectives afforded by lettering writing between characters also subordinates the rather aristocratic ideal of the superior individual. This is not just the first American novel, but the first novel about America.
