The Purpose Behind Using Symbolism in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Markheim”

Abstract

This study is an attempt to discuss symbols in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Markheim". It intends to explain these symbols to help readers fully understand the story. To achieve this, there was a need to start from general terms by devoting a part of this research to defining symbolism and providing a brief background about some major theories related to symbolism such as Sigmund Freud and Whitehead theories on symbolism. In addition to this, it was necessary to provide our research with an overview about the Victorian literature and Gothic fiction together with some historical and social backgrounds about the author. One more necessary thing to be done was an attempt to analyse some passages from the short story with the aim of offering the readers clues of interpretation to symbols in the story selected. All in all, this study aims at showing Robert Louis Stevenson's motive behind the use of symbols in his work “Markheim”.