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Why do writers use symbolism?_ Okay, so let__ say you have a headache and you wanna tell someone about it and you say, __ have a headache!_ and other people are like, __eah, whatever. Everybody gets headaches._ But your headache is not a regular headache, it__ a serious headache, so you say, __y brain is on fire!_ to try to help these people understand that this is a headache that needs attention! That__ a metaphor, right? And you use it so that you can be understood. Now let__ say you want to take those same imagistic principles but apply them to a much more complex idea than having a headache, like, for instance, the yearning that one feels for one__ dreams. And you can see the dream but you can__ cross the bay to get to the green light that embodies your dream. And you want to talk about how socio-economic class in America is a barrier _ a bay-like barrier, some would say _ that stands between you and the green light and makes that gap unbridgeable. Now, you can just talk about that stuff directly, but when you talk about it symbolically, it becomes more powerful, because instead of being abstract it becomes kind of observable_. So I think that__ why.
John Green
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Why do writers use symbolism?_ Okay, so let__ say you have a headache and you wanna tell someone about it and you say, __ have a headache!_ and other people are like, __eah, whatever. Everybody gets headaches._ But your headache is not a regular headache, it__ a serious headache, so you say, __y brain is on fire!_ to try to help these people understand that this is a headache that needs attention! That__ a metaphor, right? And you use it so that you can be understood. Now let__ say you want to take those same imagistic principles but apply them to a much more complex idea than having a headache, like, for instance, the yearning that one feels for one__ dreams. And you can see the dream but you can__ cross the bay to get to the green light that embodies your dream. And you want to talk about how socio-economic class in America is a barrier _ a bay-like barrier, some would say _ that stands between you and the green light and makes that gap unbridgeable. Now, you can just talk about that stuff directly, but when you talk about it symbolically, it becomes more powerful, because instead of being abstract it becomes kind of observable_. So I think that__ why.

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As Roran watched, the man's arms, neck, and chest shriveled, and his bones appeared in sharp relief-from the bowlike curve of his collarbones to the hollow saddle of his hips, where his stomach hung like an empty waterskin. His lips puckered and drew back farther than they were intended to over his yellow teeth, baring them in a grisly snarl, while his eyeballs deflated as if they were engorged ticks being squished empty of blood, and the surrounding flesh sank inward.

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My dad finished chewing something and then put his fork down and looked at me. 'The longer I do my job,' he said. 'the more I realize that humans lack good mirrors. It's so hard for anyone to show us how we look, and so hard for us to show anyone how we feel.''That is really lovely,' my mom said. I liked that they liked each other. 'But isn't it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.''True. Consciousness makes for poor windows, too. I don't think I'd ever thought about it quite that way.

JG
John Green

Paper Towns