Secret Lion Symbolism
Secret Lion - SymbolismSymbolism in "The Secret Lion"
"The Secret Lion" written by Alberto Rios is a very strange short story that has a lot of different symbols. Every symbol emphasizes the change of the lives of the twelve-year-old person who tells the story and his friend Sergio. As the story goes along, the boys are becoming adults. This story is associated with growing up.
The main symbol of the story is river, an arroyo. It illustrates their childhood, the place that never changes. It is the place where they can do whatever they want to do. It is a place to hang around. "It was our river, though, our personal Mississippi, our friend from long back, and it was full of stories"(43). But as they become more grown up they realize that their thoughts of the river change. As time goes by, the arroyo dissatisfies the boys, and they decide to stop going there. "Nature seemed to keep pushing us around one way or another, teaching us the same thing every place we ended up"(45).
At the beginning of the story, another symbol, the grinding ball, represents balance. But after the boys found it, they understand that they cannot have the ball forever, at the same time as they realize that they cannot be children forever. But they want the ball to stay the way it was. That's why, they decide to bury the grinning ball. It appears they wanted to stop time, to keep the ball and to be children forever.
It was so perfect so they did not want to lose it. "We went back to the arroyo for the rest of that summer, and tried to have fun the best we could. We learned to be ready for finding the grinding ball. We loved it, and when we buried it we knew what would happen. We were two boys and twelve summers then,...
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