Symbol:
Symbol,broadly, anything that signifies, or stands for, something else. In Literature, a symbol is usually something concrete- an object, a place, a character, an action- that stands for or suggests something abstract. In Joseph Conrad's story " The Lagoon," darkness is a symbol of evil and light a symbol of good. A symbol may be universal or private. Darkness and light are universal symbols of evil and good. Climbing is a universal symbol of progress, descending, of failure. The dove is a universal symbol of peace. In contrast, the great white whale in Herman Melville's Novel. Moby-Dick is a private symbol and a complex one. Many books and articles have been written in an effort to explain it, but like many great private symbols in literature and art, its significance is complex and clusive.
A symbol differs from a literal Image, from a Metaphor, and also from an emblem in an Allegory. Consider a forest, or a wood. In the following lines, woods is an image, presented literally as a place one is going through:
Over the river and through the woods
To grandmother's house we go.
If the woods were pictured in more detail-snow covered pines, elm branches black against the sky-it would still be literal image, although a more vivid one