Meanings of symbolic roles in English

So it's almost like a reversal of the symbolic roles in Pacific Rim. More Great WIRED Stories

However, with Beatrice, despite their superficial estrangement, there was an intact underlying union, a tacit awareness of their symbolic roles.

Bruegel's way of painting allegory is to depict ordinary people playing out that allegory, variously inhabiting and forgetting their symbolic roles.

Animals that were normally enemies could be persuaded, in their symbolic roles as warships, to cooperate and even to sacrifice themselves for one another.