Watch Chains, Beards and Handkerchiefs.

Suprisingly enough, all of these objects have a connection. They all can be used as symbols. All these items are used as symbols in Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo". This book is an enthralling story full of adventure, romance and revenge. The main character, Edmond Dantes, is wrongly imprisoned at the young age of 19, while on the verge of a successful career and a happy marriage. While in prison, he meets the allegedly crazy abbe Faria. Faria helps him to realize the reason for his wrongful imprisonment, and teaches him many languages, along with the basics of mathematics and chemistry. While on his deathbed, Faria tells him of a fabled treasure on the obscure island of Monte Cristo. Dantes, having grown to trust the old Abbe, escapes from prison subsequent to Faria's death, reclaims the treasure, and goes off to take vengeance on all who had wronged him.

In a book with such a variety of devious characters, the role of a specific character in traditional plotline can be very ambiguous. Alexandre Dumas gives us hints as to a certain characters role in the story by using symbolic traits or objects.

For example Eugenie Danglars is describes as a beautiful, yet very independent woman with very sharp features. Later on in the book she runs away from home, however she is for the most part a protaganist. I think that Dumas definitely used her characteristics to foreshadow how she would act later in the story. Her features were definitely symbolic.

Another time Dumas did this, was when he wrote about how Eugenie's father wore a ridiculously heavy gold watch chain. Mr. Danglars is a banker and cares a great amount about money. Later on in the book, Edmond uses his love of money to get revenge on Danglars, since he was one of the people to imprison him. The watch chain is a way of reflecting Danglars love of money. It, along with several other heavily decorated objects, are symbols of Danglars love of money, and displays the fact that he's not an amiable loving person. 

Overall, I realized that symbols can be used by the authors to display the different characters' role in the story, or their inner personality traits, which can reveal other things about the characters. Symbolism is a huge part of author's craft, and can be very subtle. However learning to pick up on subtleties is an important part of deeper thinking on books.