Symbolism in Grave?

L

Lethe

Save my Soul...
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There is a scene in Grave where Buffy and Dawn are stuck in a hole in the ground and are talking to Xander who is above them to help them out. Throughout the season Buffy and Dawn have both been victims of depression. Buffy, with her break into the scene from the perfect dimension, her affair with Spike, the lonliness....Dawn with the stealing, no attention, no friends. Both seemed to be in a metoaphoric "hole" in season six. Xander always has seemed to be on the bright side of things. He always seemed to, with his heart, pull others out of holes. Is it irony? Or is it symbolism?





Symbolic?
 
Well there was the literal Buffy started the year pulling herself out of her grave through no choice of her own but now she wanted to, the whole circle of it.

Xander did go on a bit of a downer in S6 though, watching him from Hell's Bells to Seeing Red is interesting to see a different side of Xander.
 
I always thought of the cave as a kind of metaphoric womb, and when the 2 sisters come out of it in the end, it's a kind of rebirth.

Speaking of possible symbolism in Grave (my personal favourite episode) though, what do you think of Willow channeling destructive power through a phallic symbol at the end? This game of symbolism is fun, isn't it? 🙂
 
nerd4hire said:
Speaking of possible symbolism in Grave (my personal favourite episode) though, what do you think of Willow channeling destructive power through a phallic symbol at the end? This game of symbolism is fun, isn't it? 🙂
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lol... It could be taken one step further, after all the phallic symbol did have a female statue on it.

Back onto topic. Symbolism can be found in any aspect that is studied deep enough. I definitely admit that some symbolism is intentional, I think that sometimes we read too deep into some things. I always remember reading Shakespeare in high school and the teacher would look deep into the text, I always used to argue that it was possible he wrote the plays to be liked and so that he could earn some cash.

In the case of the scene being discussed I think that n4h is on the right track with the cave being a symbolic womb. This symbolism I believe to be intentional, but alot of it I don't.
 
I think its anew beginning thing --- buffy has actually climbed out of a cgrave 3 times this season
1-bargaining
2-omwf
3-grave
 
Good catch. I was thinking too, back to season two's Go Fish that Xander helps B out of the pool filled with sea creatures.

Note that this was very near after Jenny's death and Angel soul loss.
 
Yea...I always saw them crawling out of the hole as a type of rebirth...so I think it was meant to be symbolic in that way...
 
Beer_Nut said:
lol... It could be taken one step further, after all the phallic symbol did have a female statue on it.
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Anyone read The da Vinci Code? All of a sudden the pentacle on top takes on an entirely different meaning. For those of you who haven't read it, the pentacle is supposed to be some kind of old pagan symbol for the sacred feminine.

And yes I do think there's some symbolism in Grave. Buffy gets to fight the earth (quite literal) and once again crawl out of a grave. It ended like it started only this time Buffy wanted it, she got the chance to deciede if she wanted to live or not.
 
JollyApe said:
Anyone read The da Vinci Code? All of a sudden the pentacle on top takes on an entirely different meaning. For those of you who haven't read it, the pentacle is supposed to be some kind of old pagan symbol for the sacred feminine.
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Pentacle's one of those with an abundance of meanings.
 
Yeah, and it's not symbolism, but it is a cruel irony that in S1 "Nightmares" Buffy is buried alive by the Master (one of her fears) and is helped out of the grave by...wait for it...Xander (among others)...come to thinkof it, it does fit...Then in S6 she really does claw her way out of a grave...a couple of times, it seems, even if the "cave" is only a metaphor.
 
It could be that the cave is a metaphor for the thing that we don't see. It could be a reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. When buffy is in the cave it could be her blindness to things around her, or the worlds blindness to the world around them. I dunno, just random philosophy.
 
L
Lethe
Good one!
Well, seeing as we're getting deep (cave metaphor?)...

I'm going to meander around a bit to try to make a point. Try to stay with me OK, because if you make it to the end you get a pentacle 🙂

I remember this guy's anthropology class I used to wake up in every now and again. He used to like to harp on how the same symbols and stories emerge throughout history and geography in a seemingly disconnected manner. I remember him talking about how there were crosses and messianic myths in the New World, before the Europeans landed.

Since that time I've heard similar things said about symbols like swastikas and I believe pentacles.

Out of all that I eventually developed this cute little theory of my own. It had to do with numbers. I began to notice that if a particular numeric grouping was drawn attention to in a story or theory, the number mentioned seemed to tell the same kind of story over and over. I forget most of the examples I gathered over the years, but a few of them are still there.

Take the number 3 for instance. Compare the 3 little pigs to Freud's theory of Id, Ego, and Super ego. In both cases you have a grouping of the elemental progressing to the more complex. In the Three musketeers there's a similar grouping, and a story that goes peasant to soldier. Usually there's the message strength exists in the complex. Try it. Think of a 3 story, grouping or theoretical concept and look for what I just suggested. Three stooges - from the elemental Curly Joe to the more complex leader Moe.

You can do the same thing with other numbers.

Four for instance has to do with the continuing cycle of birth and death with juxtaposition from one thing to it's opposite. Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall. The Four horseman of the Apocalypse - Man dies from evil and is reborn in goodness of God's kingdom. Four Feathers - a coward becomes a brave man. A sighted man gains insight in blindness. You might say one dies to be born as the opposite of what it was.

OK so here's my point. It doesn't even matter if the writers of Grave saw the significance of the symbols they chose. The fact that they're there gives them importance. The mind of man is organized in such a way that certain symbols and ideas have their own inherent significance. Certain symbols and ideas are created and perceived by a common mindset, that groups things in a certain way.
 
Numbers are very significant, and different numbers have been important to many different cultures.

Three: to quote Multiplication Rock , "is a magic number". Christians especially revere it (Holy Trinity, Three Wise Men), but the Greeks did too (Three Fates, Three Graces, Three Furies) as well as the Norse (Three Norns), among others. Chinese numerology has 3 as a special number of luck.

Four: In North American native culture, four was the number of perfection, as in the seasons, and the elements (earth, air, fire, water).

Five: Natives thought five was instability, and brought bad luck.

Six: One less than perfection for Christians...the number of the beast's trinity (666).

Seven: Seven deadly sins, seven virtues. Perfection for Chirstians (the seven seals of Revelation). Also lucky in Chinese numbers, but I forget why...

Eight: The number of financial luck to Chinese. August 8, 1988 was the day that more Chinese weddings happened in Toronto than every other day that year! I don't know why I remember that...

Twelve: The number of apostles. That's why we have 12 on a jury.

Thirteen: Strictly a Christian superstition...it was the number of people at the Last Supper, and the thirteenth person is typically portrayed as being Judas Iscariot, the betrayer.

I looove numerology, but I don't know enough about it...yet!

But you are right n4h, as times change, numbers are given different symbology to different people...like 9/11. If you said 911 before 2001, you'd probably think "emergency, call the ambulance"...and that's not much different than what it means now, but with the added weight of planes hitting buildings...
 
Well, it's nice to be agreed with, but I'm not sure I spoke clearly.

I'm saying when you see numbers in works of fiction, and I'll include non-scientific (not formulated based on physical evidence) theory such as Freudian in that they always appear to tell the same story over any time period or geographical divide.

I suggest this happens because the physical makeup of the brain forces this.

A symbol often behaves the same way and can have significance in a story, even if the writer of the story didn't intend it.
 
nerd4hire said:
Well, it's nice to be agreed with, but I'm not sure I spoke clearly.

I'm saying when you see numbers in works of fiction, and I'll include non-scientific (not formulated based on physical evidence) theory such as Freudian in that they always appear to tell the same story over any time period or geographical divide.

I suggest this happens because the physical makeup of the brain forces this.

A symbol often behaves the same way and can have significance in a story, even if the writer of the story didn't intend it.
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Not disagreeing with ya, and I do see your point. Universality for the number 3 is especially prevalent across almost all cultures. And as a biologist at one time, there is definitely some merit to your theory on brain function forcing interpretation of numeric representations. Hmmm, maybe some research this week on night shift...I like research!

EDIT***Reread your original long post...you did say what you repeated later, but I went off the rails a bit...how 'bout a half a pentacle?😉
 
Kd...back at work on the old graveyard shift...3:00 in the morning on the east coast...wondering what to do with the rest of the night...clicks on the old buffy-boards...

The persnickety N4H 3 hrs back on the west coast won't even allow himself to be agreed with.

KD tries again. N4H chuckles, and decides to give him a whole pentacle.
 
nerd4hire said:
Kd...back at work on the old graveyard shift...3:00 in the morning on the east coast...wondering what to do with the rest of the night...clicks on the old buffy-boards...

The persnickety N4H 3 hrs back on the west coast won't even allow himself to be agreed with.

KD tries again. N4H chuckles, and decides to give him a whole pentacle.
Click to expand...

Hey, third time's the charm, right? And that three hours makes a difference...
 
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