Symbolism Of Shaving Essay

As you may have noticed, even though "Shaving" is a short in terms of words story, it is a story that encompasses a big symbol with many other symbols around it. When you read the text at first, you may not notice all these, but after a deep analysis, the shaving part in the story really comes clearer in our mind and the meaning the author wanted to give to this part of the story comes obvious.
The shaving part in the story is clearly the most interesting part of the story in terms of symbols because its hole process encompasses many part that are, in a symbolic way, linked to the main theme of the story. The whole story turns around the shaving symbol. In this story, it is obvious that the ill of Barry’s dad generates the idea that Barry will be, in the future, the oldest man in the house and he will have to take the …show more content…
Another important observation we need to make while reading the story is that usually, a father teaches his son to shave himself because it is a man “thing”, but in this story, it is completely the opposite. In the story, Barry shaves his dad. This represents how Barry needs to assimilate the knowledge of his dad, which is understandable in the context of the story. Many elements, in the shaving process of the story represent this idea.
At first, the mother is not sure if Barry will be able to shave his dad. By thinking symbolically, it is clear that the symbol the author wanted to imply is not the idea that he would not be able to shave his dad. This represents the fact that her mother knows how much it is a huge responsibility to be a man of the house and she is not really sure that Barry will be able to take it. On the other hand, we can see how Barry is convinced he will be able to do it just by looking how he convinces his mother and how he tries to complete his shaving job perfectly. It is also clear that the main character really takes his time to shave