Q&A #5

The first question I wished to contemplate this week is whether there was a difference in verbal sentences being metaphors, and more symbolic ones like the example I mentioned in class. For those who may have forgotten I mentioned in a famous American Gothic short story, an old house is meant to literally represent the decaying former Antebellum South. This metaphor it seems would only work if the reader had a specific background understanding of when the story was written, and recent American history around that time. In many novels settings, objects, and characters are used to symbolize something not explicitly told to the reader. It seems that in both cases, the verbal and the symbolic, there is still that interaction between thoughts, however it seems the latter requires some sort of pretense to the piece itself. What do you guys think? Would a metaphor fail if the reader is not informed of its origins, or would many of use be able to recognize the symbolism used by context alone?