True Meaning

Author’s Note: This is a text analysis piece on Fablehaven written by Brandon Mull.

Symbolism is shown throughout many things; life, movies and books. One book that symbolism flows through is the book Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull. He uses many symbols to represent different aspects throughout the novel.

Like many books, Fablehaven has the use of light and darkness to represent good and evil. Good is represented by light because they are trying to save the world, unlike the evil who is trying to plunge the world into darkness, hatred and chaos. These are common symbols used not only throughout books, but in movies and even in real life.

Light and Darkness are not the only things representing good and evil throughout the book. The evil are wicked things like demons which is common, because demons are usually taken as evil beings and they are definitely not different here. The good is represented by gentler things such as, humans, fairies, and unicorns. This is also common because fairies and unicorns are generally taken as the calm and helpful creatures.

The sides were not the only things that had symbolism. In the story there were artifacts and some of them even had their own symbols. One of the artifacts was a cat-shaped teapot which would heal any wound unless they are dead. It is shaped like a cat because in Egypt the goddess of Cat, Bast, had once been known as a deity representing protection. Another artifact was a horn of a unicorn but this horn you could drink out of and if you did you would stop aging. The artifact was a unicorn’s horn because a unicorn is considered magical and in some fables a unicorn is immortal, so it was chosen to represent the artifact that gave eternal life.

Symbols are shown throughout everything, whether it’s in life, a movie, or in a book. Fablehaven is just one of the many books that show the use of symbolism.  After you see the symbolism in Fablehaven you will see more aspects of symbolism throughout life.