The Symbolism of The Question Mark

As you are reading The Question Mark by Gevorg Emin, it seems clear that the author of the text was speaking in a symbolic sense. I will argue why The Question Mark is about the loss of the certainty of youth and the growing sense of reflection as one grow older. I will also point out an example of how The Question Mark is about the author’s melancholy at the thought of such a transformation. I will use examples taken out from the text as arguments for this claim, and thereby point out the symbolism hidden in the author’s choice of word.

An example of the author’s belief of the certainty and confidence of the youth is shown as he writes: “Did you not once evoke, call out and stress?” This does indeed bring one’s thought to youngsters; rebels, who believes themselves to have all the answers to life. Is it not commonly accepted – joked about even – how teenagers groan over their parents stupidity? While they, themselves, have figured life out in all its messy wonders?

The author of the text call these young people for exclamation question-mark-lacrimaspoints and asks them; “What force bent you over? Age, time and vices of this century?” As we grow older, we cripple. Our backs, once proud and straight, bends down as time goes by and as we experience heartache, bad luck and the worries of economy. Shortly said; we transform from proud exclamation points to wondering question marks.

The author’s condolences to the transformed are also clear in the text. “Poor thing. Poor crippled measure of exclamation.” It is clear that he does not congratulate the question mark with the wisdom, which comes with age, despite that some might argue questioning the world around you is a good thing.

These examples in the text are some of the most obvious symbolism in the text, in which the author talks about the loss of certainty, which comes with youth, and the growing weariness of old age.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s