Multiple Meanings of a Symbol in PaseoThe use of symbolism has long been a technique by which an author can present much more than the literal meaning of a story. However, symbols are not always easily defined; in fact, it is sometimes possible that a symbol in a story can be endowed with multiple meanings, which lead the reader to a greater understanding of the author's message. This is the case of the story "Paseo" by Jose Donoso. The story is told from the point of view of an adult man who looks back at the isolated and frightened child he was. As the boy's jealousy focuses on the attention gained from an anonymous but persistent dog, Donoso leads us into the realm of multiple symbolism. Perhaps most obviously, the dog represents emotion. The boy in the story grows up with cold people, in a house that "is not happy" (316) and which expresses "an absence, a lack, which because it was not recognized was irreparable" (316). The boy wishes that his family's narrow feeling "could overflow and express itself in a fit of anger...or in some foolishness" (317). Of course he knows that won't be the case. The dog that Aunt Mathilda adopts, however, represents the opposite of a repressed, or perhaps non-existent, emotion: "His whole body, from his trembling muzzle to his ready-to-wiggle tail, was filled with an abundant capacity for fun" (323 ). . It is the dog's expression of emotions that permeates Aunt Mathilda's cold exterior and pushes her to express her emotions. Yet the boy is still isolated, perhaps even more so, as his jealousy takes over. As he watches his aunt pet the dog sleeping on her lap, he realizes the extent of his isolation and feels the loss of all hope that he too could be... at the center of the card... By not entering, the boy recognizes the he final influence that the dog and the madness it represents will have on his aunt: "I went to bed terrified, knowing that this was the end. I wasn't wrong. Because one night... Aunt Mathilda took the dog out for a walk after dinner, and did not return" (327). Who can say whether her aunt's disappearance is a manifestation of her madness or simply a rebellion on her part, an affirmation of the life she never had? experienced before? Yet, in the boy's mind, she is dead, and her death was caused by the dog and everything it symbolizes. The repression of emotions in her aunt was liberated by something non-human and, in doing so, she restored disorder to order and madness to composure. Works Cited Donoso, Jose. "Paseo." The Riverside Literature Anthology. Ed. Douglas Caccia. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1991. 315-27.