"The Symbol" is a short story written at the very last moment of Virginia Woolf`s life and in the rage of the World War II. It is a story of a mountain and the mother`s death remembered by a lady who is on a vacation at the Alpine resort. This paper is to read the story as one of Woolf`s autobiographical attempts to measure the meaning of her own life. Impressed by the overwhelming sight of the Alpine mountain, the lady believes that the mountain is a symbol but cannot decided what it may symbolize. Pursuing the answer for the question, she writes a letter to her sister in England. In the letter she revisits the old memory of her mother`s illness and death and how she longed for her death and the ensuing freedom. The nameless lady in the Alpine resort reminds us of Eleanor or Delia in The Years who had to take care of their sick mother until her death, also taking the mother`s place in the family, sacrificing their own personal life and freedom. It looks as if Eleanor writing to Delia in her late days about their mother and those old days. It could also be Woolf herself writing to her sister Vanessa, recalling their youth and the mother. Witnessing the death of young men in an attempt to climb the mountain, the lady closes the letter without reaching the answer for the question. Instead she only leaves three dots. It is arguable that the mountain could be the symbol of the mother who is the origin of the daughter`s life and remains as an abject, which is neither the subject nor the other. Because the mother and her death is located at the very center of Woolf`s life as well as other women`s, the story of the mother`s death should be told and revisited to engender the story of daughters` life. Thus the short story "the Symbol" could be Woolf`s attempt to "think back through our mothers" in order to engender the story of her own life.