Symbolism is a mode of expression often employed by American writers. How important and effective do you find the various uses of symbolism in at least two American texts that you have studied.

The various uses of symbolism are extremely important and effective in William’s ‘A Street Car Named Desire,’ and Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Writers often use symbols that are not so easily understood because they are based on private and personal experiences and visions. Precisely because such symbols that are not readily understood, and require either some knowledge of the writer’s life or an instinctive empathy with the thinking behind the symbol, they are much more challenging and intriguing to the reader. It is for this reason that symbolism is so important.

When it comes to symbolism in ‘A Street Car Named Desire’, the first symbol to strike the reader is the streetcar bound for Desire or Cemeteries, which represents not only Blanche’s headlong descent into disaster, but also William’s lifelong pursuit of sexual partners. Both sisters also use the streetcar as a euphemism for sexual experience.

The spilt coke on Blanche’s skirt is another s...