In Poe's "The Raven," the bird answers "Nevermore," and the speaker says his soul from its shadow "Shall be lifted nevermore." The raven has come to stand for:

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby reaches toward "a single green light, minute and far away," later called "the green light, the orgastic future." The light has come to stand for:

In Othello, the handkerchief is Desdemona's "first remembrance from the Moor," and Othello says, "There's magic in the web of it." It comes to stand for:

In A Christmas Carol, Marley tells Scrooge, "I wear the chain I forged in life" and says he made it "link by link." The chain stands for:

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester wears "the letter A" in "fine red cloth" with "elaborate embroidery." The letter has come to stand for:

In Moby-Dick, Ishmael says, "It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me." The whale's whiteness comes to stand for:

In Jane Eyre, after Rochester proposes beneath it, "the great horse-chestnut" is struck by lightning and split. The tree reads as symbolic because:

In Macbeth, Macbeth calls the dagger before him "A dagger of the mind, a false creation." The detail reads symbolically because:

Before killing Desdemona in Othello, Othello says, "Put out the light, and then put out the light." The candle reads symbolically because:

Fitzgerald describes Gatsby's valley of ashes as "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat." The landscape reads symbolically because:

In King Lear, Lear cries, "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!" The storm becomes more than weather because:

As Pip leaves the forge in Great Expectations, "the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me." The mist reads symbolically because:

Macbeth asks, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" and Lady Macbeth later cries, "Out, damned spot!" The washing motif accumulates into:

In King Lear, Cordelia says, "Nothing, my lord," and Lear answers, "Nothing will come of nothing." The repeated "nothing" accumulates into:

Hamlet says, "I know not 'seems,'" and later, "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." The motif of seeming accumulates into:

In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Water, water, every where" yields "Nor any drop to drink," and "The very deep did rot." The sea motif accumulates into:

In Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death," "We passed the School," "We passed the Fields," and "We passed the Setting Sun." The repetition accumulates into:

In Heart of Darkness, "The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed" and "You would think they were praying to it." The repetition accumulates into:

Dickens opens Bleak House with "Fog everywhere" and places Chancery "at the very heart of the fog." The fog functions as:

When Hamlet says, "Denmark's a prison," Rosencrantz answers that ambition makes it so. Denmark functions symbolically as:

In Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," the mansion has "vacant eye-like windows" and a "fissure" that widens at the end. The house functions as:

In Wuthering Heights, "Wuthering" is "descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed." The place functions as:

In Dante's Inferno, "I found myself within a forest dark, / For the straightforward pathway had been lost." The forest functions symbolically as:

In Everyman, Knowledge says, "Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide, / In thy most need to go by thy side." Knowledge functions as:

Frost's speaker says the roads "Had worn them really about the same" before claiming he took "the one less traveled by." Which reading does the poem refuse?

In "Ozymandias," the pedestal commands, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" but "Nothing beside remains." Which reading does the evidence not bear?

Keats writes, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter." Which reading will the urn passage not bear?

In Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper," boys are in "coffins of black" before the lesson, "if all do their duty, they need not fear harm." Which reading will this not bear?

Crane writes in "The Open Boat," "nature does not regard him as important." Which reading does that evidence not bear?

In Hamlet, holding Yorick's skull, Hamlet recalls, "Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft." Which reading does the evidence not bear?