The past possesses the present in Symbols and Signs using myth, including the bible, and in a way shows that there is no new future.  Nothing can be done today that has not already happened in the past.  Only different agents of agency, but the same actions are done as it has been done ad infitnium. 

            In a lazy first reason the reader would see only a story about two parents whose son commits suicide, perhaps.  The first clue is the “ten” different fruit jellies and we can think of the Ten Commandments.  The mother wears cheap black dresses, like a nun does, and lives next to Mrs. Sol (sun) who gets dolled up everyday and is not pious.  The father’s now dependent on Isaac, his brother. This refers back to the Old Testament.  The father had to leave Europe for the anti-Semitism as the Old Testament tells of the Israelites searching for a homeland, or reclaiming one.

            Every thing that the mother sees, she turns it into a memory from the past so not to live in the present.  As Elliot writes, going forward is going backwards and vice versa, the mother is trying to go back in the present.

             With tracing of religion, I believe the son was waiting for the apocalypse in myth terms.  The doctor gave the parents an article describing his illness, which spoke of a “veiled” reference to his personality and existence.  The son was waiting for the apocalypse or unveiling so he could find his freedom and escape his pain.

            The references to religion, and religion coming from Latin meaning superstation, and super meaning “higher.”  The images of flying and a injured bird twitching in a puddle starts to seem more important and relevant clues.  The son had already tried jumping to his salvation but another patient interrupted the attempt because he thought the son had learned to fly according to the doctor.

            The mother looks at pictures from the past and stops at three pictures of the son.  She remembers how the past was better and the past still clings on to her.  The three pictures show that a myth is playing out now in the present.  Then as the mother recounts all of the pain that she and her husband have endured over the years, we cannot but think of Job.

            The past possessed the present in this piece because the son’s desire to fly has already happened as Icarus did.  The parents are going through countless trial and tribulations as Job did in the bible.  Nabokov happens to be a clever plagiarizer and writes a good story of the past.

            If I was on a deserted island and had two books, The Bible and Ovid’s Metamorphoses at least I’d have all the books in the world and there would be no time.