The Secret Lion’ Symbolism: Critical Analysis

In the short story, “The Secret Lion,” the author tinkers around with the idea of maturity by creating different symbols to represent various ideas of growing up. The main character, who now joins the cult of junior high, experiences slight changes from his younger life that will eventually become a thing of the past.

In the reading, the main character is described as a “newbie” in the context of being clueless about his upcoming days in middle school. At first, he doesn’t realize that everything has changed but the more time he spends as an older kid, he views the world from a different lens now. The author uses the word “Lion” as a way to symbolize the unknown. “Everything changed. Just like that. Like the rug, the one that gets pulled---or better, like the tablecloth those magicians pull where the stuff on the table stays the same but the gasp! from the audience makes the staying-the-same part not matter. Like that.” He describes a rug being pulled to his quick change in life from being a child to a grown adult. For example, junior high is being compared to his old elementary Alma Mater, in which he discusses the differences between the teachers and how they are more strict and less babysitter-like. “...we felt personally abandoned somehow. When a person had all these teachers now, he didn’t get taken care of the same way, even though six was more than one.”, this quote, out of many, directly shows the idea of how growing up comes into play. The narrator discusses how the jobs of teachers have shifted from holding hands to “Cutting off your hand”. This shift of care between his two schools, represents the phase of becoming more independent, strengthening the idea of maturity.

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After they got used to the way of middle school, they found a river. They called it the Arroyo. At the river, they live their lives as teenagers, talking about things they want to do with girls, ”and we would yell about girls and all the things we wanted to do with them, as loud as we could.” The theme of the story embodies mainly the Arroyo. When the boys go to visit, they scream at the top of their lungs with every dirty word they could think of. They no longer faced the restrictions that youth put on them which elementary school symbolizes. This idea further proves how the act of growing up loses the innocence that being young has to offer.

“It was the one we were not supposed to go. So we did. This was, after all, what junior high had least shown us”. This quote means that school has always confined the actions of others, therefore acting out and being a ‘rebel’ is something that comes along with growing up.

Continuing the story, they walk alongside a railroad and come across a grinding ball. The boys converse about how they thought that nature was imperfect. “...we had this perception about nature then, that nature is imperfect and that round things are perfect” In the quote mentioned above, the ball represents the perfect things in life, the stuff that no one has to worry about. Both the river and the ball, show their innocence, “...was how much that ball was like that place, that whole Arroyo: couldn’t tell anybody about it, didn’t understand what it was, didn’t have a name for it. It just felt good. It was just perfect in the way it was that place, that whole going to that place, that whole junior high school lion. It was iron-heavy, it had no name, it felt good or not, we couldn’t take it home to show our mothers, and once we buried it, it was gone forever.”, The reason why it felt sensational to them was that it reminded them of their youth and how they didn’t have any responsibility for anything. They stated how they couldn’t describe it because

they have grown up. Later in the text, “The truth is, we didn’t look so hard for it. We were two boys and twelve summers then, and not stupid. Things get taken away.” When referring to the ball, they couldn’t find it because they had buried their childhood. Since the last paragraph talks about how it was twelve summers ago, most of their life during that time was buried as well, making a new chapter in their life, maturing even more.

After a couple of days, he and his friend go on a journey in which he lands right on a golf course. Unaware, his friend and he settle down for lunch and continue to ponder about life as they know it. Suddenly, two men come to interrupt their moment in paradise. When the author gets to the very end of the story, he mentions that “something got taken away from us that moment. Heaven. We grew up a little bit, and couldn’t go backward. We learned. No one had ever told us about golf. They had told us about heaven. And it went away. We got golf in exchange.” When the two men came to kick Sergio and him off the property, it represented the change in ages as well as responsibility, which resulted in growing up. While in many stories heaven is seen as purity but in the “Secret Lion”, it’s symbolized as childhood and every little thing that came with it. The golf course is represented as adulthood and is stereotypically a sport for old people, which now they can relate to because they paint themselves as older people. He also discusses how they came to appreciate golf because of how much they’ve grown.

The piece ended with, “It was the lion.” These 4 words alone tie the whole story back together by referring to the first few lines, “I was twelve and in junior high school and something happened that we didn’t have a name for, but it was nonetheless like a lion, and roaring, roaring that way the biggest things do. Everything changed. Just like that.” The author wrote his story based on the perspective of the main character’s older life and detailed everything with the wisdom that he had acquired over his years. He wrote about the journey from being a boy to an older man and all the things between.

As also noticed, Mr. Rios likes to string words together to make one word. For example: “Getridofit”,” Knivesforksplates”,”wildtreacherousraging” and ” alligator mouth”. The usage of this probably means that the person saying this was talking coherently fast, which the author wanted to make present in the text, just as if someone were saying that in real life. His desire was to create a story that resembled the most real things and the most relevant topics in life.

Overall, in this interesting piece of literature, the author uses many symbols to convey many aspects within one meaning throughout the story, which in many opinions is a very helpful tactic that can help analysis become more transparent. The idea of using a lion as the main symbol showed a very good contrast between being young and a lion, who's experienced in a lot of things. Many ideas were shown throughout the passage that represented the common theme in the story.

To wrap up, growing up is the start of a new beginning in life. It represents the loss of innocence and the start of freedom, both scary at the same time. Maturity in the story is an ever-lasting effect that many people can relate to. It creates a tone of nostalgia and provides a constant reminder of one’s youth. “The secret lion felt good, without it being explained, it just felt good” and that is the act of growing up.