Effi's symbolic husband
Effi's husband symbolizes something about her desire for the attention of older men. Also, the man she selects has some history with her mother so that there is a competition-against-the-mother motif, like an inverted Oedipal arrangement. Effi's attraction to elder men with power could be called an allure to patriarchy where Baron Innstetten Geert symbolizes ultimate provision and order. She sacrifices her will to that unfeeling man (symbolically mechanical in his relationships), and then comes to regret how much her safety costed in terms of her own self.
Loneliness and ghosts
Effi sees ghosts, but that is a confusing situation. Her husband dismisses her encounter with the supernatural claiming that she is simply losing her mind. The question is on the table whether both could be true. Also, there are the two other options, the one where the ghosts are real, and one where they are not real, but figments of a strained imagination under incredible duress. These three potential outcomes are not really the point of the symbol though! The symbol points to Effi's extreme negative emotions, giving her husband a chance to show love, but he doesn't show her warmth, encouragement, or acceptance. Effi spirals into chaos.
The affair
Major Crampas has a troublesome-sounding name. Indeed, he does end up bringing Effi's life a great deal of pain and frustration, but not before he gives her the emotional warmth and acceptance she requires. She sleeps with him, but the affair is emotionally complicated by the fact that her own husband never allowed himself to be "mated" to Effi, emotionally speaking. As a mechanical, transactional man, Effi has not experienced the love that she hoped marriage would contain. This dual arrangement, with security from one man and love from another man, shows the schism of her mental health.
Annie as a symbol
When Effi finds Annie, her daughter, is old enough to give her emotional attention and love, she finds the illimitable love of a child for its mother. Effi realizes that this daughter is true family, and the love of her daughter begins to take on religious importance. Annie symbolizes the hope for the future, because she is a young child, and she symbolizes the love between women, because Effi has only Annie as her support. Their duality is hinted by both their names' double letters. One name ends with "e" and the other begins with "e," suggesting a foil. When Baron Geert trains Annie to hate Effi, that symbolizes true emotional doom, and it isn't surprising that Effi finds herself dying very soon thereafter.
The regression to death
In true Oedipal fashion, Effi lacks the self-esteem to support herself through the emotional betrayal of her marriage. She depends on the authority of the patriarchy to whom she sold her soul in marriage, but now that Baron Geert has truly betrayed her, betraying her in their marriage by keeping her as a pet instead of as a true friend and companion, and then by killing the man who did love her, albeit in a womanizing way, and then by turning Annie against Effi. Again, Effi has an option to stand on her own feet, but her emotionally frail and schizoaffective mental state keep her dependent on others. The symbolic reversal of childhood paints the motif of regression; back to her parents, back to dependency on them, begging for forgiveness where no forgiveness is needed. She is regressing through her childhood emotions to death, an un-birthing from life.
