Symbolism In Burning Bright By Ron Rash

Superior Essays
From the short story “Burning Bright,” by Ron Rash, an American poet, short story writer and novelist; writes one of his stories on “Lincolnites,” which is about a nineteen year old woman who defends her house from a Confederate soldier who wishes to take some precious items which the farm needs to survive. In this story, Ron Rash uses symbolism to express the meaning to something which is beyond its literal sense, he uses irony to say one thing when it actually means another, and he uses the foreshadowing to have the audience predict what will happen in the future.
The first example of foreshadowing is the long steel needles which Lily uses for her knitting. The foreshadowing of the needles when she is knitting some clothes as a way to describe
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In a quote, he introduces the incident which Lily does as a way to seduce the Confederate through sexual pleasure which tells the audience what might happen next. In a quote it states,” As she got up from the chair, her hands smoothed the gingham around her hips. Lily stepped to the porch edge and freed the braid so her blonde hair fell loose on her neck and shoulders. “You know my meaning," she said” (Rash 199). This quote states the foreshadowing that Lily will try to find a way to distract the Confederate from getting the plough horse by using herself as the attraction to get him what he wants in a different …show more content…
The story uses foreshadowing where it implies to the audience that something is happening even though the audience doesn’t know it will happen. This quote is a symbolism of religion where, it seems that Lily is a great and noble woman even if she had to kill someone to begin a relaxing day again. The story also has irony which is interesting to understand that the Confederate soldier didn’t consider that Lily could be a Union solider because her husband was a Lincolnite. In times of war, anyone can be the enemy and anyone can become an ally based on which side they support. Overall, the moral of the story "Lincolnities" is that someone no matter who are or what they can do, can be able to do things which no one would expect them to

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