The little doll (symbol)
The time for the Feast was approaching, and Nokes’s task was to cook a cake for the occasion. He was thinking about the cake since he had taken the position of the Master cook, and wanted to make something really special, something that would be remembered through years. So he decided to “stick a little doll on a pinnacle in the middle of the Cake”, which would be “dressed all in white, with a little wand in her hand ending in a tinsel star”. The little doll on the top of the cake is a symbol for the Fairy Queen.
The faystar (symbol)
The faystar is the main symbol of the story. At first, this object is introduced into the story as a “small star, hardly as big as one of our sixpences, black-looking as if it was made of silver but was tarnished”, but as the plot of the story is developing, the star obtains deeper and more significant meaning. It becomes the symbol for any object or event, which had played some role in one’s life, but the time came to let it go. Smith thought that “the star on his forehead was a passport to go wherever he wished”, but only when he had to give it up, he began to appreciate it. The message revealed by the symbolic meaning of the star is that people should be grateful for the present moment and everything this moment gives.
The flower (symbol)
Another symbol of the magic country of Faery is the flower, which Smith has received from a strange dancing maid during one of his wanderings. It was a special flower, that “did not wither nor grow dim” and they kept it as “a secret and a treasure”. The flower is called the Living Flower, and is the symbol of the magic country, but it also obtains symbolic meaning of universe things, which are beyond human control.
“The Smith made a little casket with a key for it, and there it lay and was handed down for many generations in his kin; and those who inherited the key would at times open the casket and look long at the Living Flower, till the casket closed again: the time of its shutting was not theirs to choose”. The last phrase “the time of its shutting was not theirs to choose” adds atmosphere of inevitability to the overall spirit of the story. There are things that people cannot control, and this is the message, which the author tries to convey to the reader. With this purpose, the symbol of the flower is used.
