Symbolism - On Purpose, Subconsciously, or English Teacher Nonsense?

 It is a well-known fact that English teachers LOVE symbolism.  So much so that it often becomes a meme involving English teachers going ga-ga over the blue curtains:

I've seen where non-education posts on social media mentions something about English teachers and symbolism and the comments sections would be full of people with not fond memories of their English teacher's obsession with symbols.

Of course we know that symbolism is everywhere.  There is a whole chapter on it in How to Read Literature Like a Professor after all.

Back in 1963 (just one short year after the debut of the greatest literary character of all time - Spider-Man), a young kid sent out a form questionnaire to several authors of the time asking them four questions.  Amazingly, he got back answer.  

Some were thorough, like this one from Ralph Ellison:

And some were snippy like Ayn Rand's:

The Paris Review did an article on the kid and his quest to find out if authors use symbolism or not that I found interesting and thought you might too.  You can read it here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/12/05/document-the-symbolism-survey/?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwL4cndjbGNrAvhyZWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAAEeFXjxSsMhetpQKMva-yL4FJaOtxuBtNr08MOjrF2iHunik_P4Jc3FJj7ndYQ_aem_IHcoHwIVr7dTn_HM9NChKw