/lit/ - Literature

What's the point of drawing parallels to another work in your own work? How does the symbolism add anything to the core abstraction that the story represents? For example if you're telling a tale that ponders what is good and bad, does adding symbolism to another work that pondered what is good and bad make it better? If your book has symbolism to religion because one of the many stories struggled with the same questions, why draw the lines there? What's the point? Why is it regarded so highly? Yes you're both telling the same story, that's cool