The Swinging Rope
The rope across the ravine which acts as sort of topographical security guard protecting “Terabithia” from outsiders is the film’s primary symbol of the link between childhood and adulthood; it IS the Bridge to Terabithia, after all. For awhile, anyway. While it literally acts as the key to unlocking the world of pure imagination on the other side, its status as symbol is really cemented by virtue of the tragedy that is at the center of the film. SPOILER ALERT: When a major character dies as a result of the rope breaking and causing a downing in the ravine, it attains its symbolic strength as the thing which forever causes that character to remain a child.
The Bridge to Terabithia
The real bridge to Terabithia, of course, winds up actually being the one that Jess build out of wood. The bridge in this case—which the swinging rope never really was in the truest sense—is not just a bridge allowing outsiders to enter what was once his private world to share only with Leslie; it is a symbol of the bridges of understanding. At one point the kids in class sing along with their teacher to “Why Can We Be Friends” and the building of the bridge is the symbolic act that Jess has come to fully wondering why that song still asks such a simple question that provides no easy answer. He is building a bridge to forge friendships and relationships and understanding.
The Keys
The keys that Jess temporarily loses and which causes such anguish to his father when he can’t find them are a symbol that for all her imagination and sophistication and even worldliness and maturity, Leslie is much more of a kid than Jess by virtue of irresponsibility. Even when she learns just how serious an issue the missing keys are for Jess, she insists on delaying their return in order to make them props in her world of childish make-believe. The keys symbolize that maturity comes in different forms for kids at different times.
Christianity (The Bible)
The Bible is really a rather controversial symbol in the film. Jess and May Belle mindlessly repeat what they’ve been told about believing in the Bible—everybody is a sinner, non-believers are doomed to suffer in hell and, most importantly, if it’s in the Bible, then by definition it is true. In other words, Christianity sounds a lot like Terabithia; a make-believe land where things are true because you believe them to be so.
Terabithia
Terabithia is a land of pure imagination when it is under the sole dominion of Leslie and Jess. It is a place where something can be real simply by willing it to be so. And the fact that the “lost” keys happen to be there is of great symbolic significance: proof that Terabithia cannot exist in the real world at all because the way to keep it pure is to descend into the realm of madness. The imagination is a wonderful place, but those who live self-contained within their imagination without the real world of responsibilities successfully entering and being dealt with represent a danger to society that is very real if admittedly misunderstood. Jess’ father represents the real world where the imagination needs to be compartmentalized as a separate entity and Jess—as might be expected—plays out that expectation forced upon his self-identity by his father. Leslie is still immature enough to believe that a world of pure imagination is possible and is not dangerous. Once Jess has built the bridge there, Terabithia’s status as symbol changes. It is no longer a world of pure imagination denied to any and all intrusions from reality. The bridge is an acknowledgement of self-identity by Jess that the world of responsibility and imagination can co-exist. It is through his final act that Terabithia’s symbolic meaning is transformed.
