Explain this "A Separate Peace" quote?

Question

"To enlist. To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything down to my last bit of clothing, to break the pattern of my life--that complex design I had been weaving since birth with all its dark threads, its unexplainable symbols set against a conventional background of domestic white and schoolboy blue, all those tangled strands which required the dexterity of a virtuoso to keep flowing--I yearned to take giant military shears to it, snap! bitten off in an instant, and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki which could weave only a plain, flat, khaki design, however twisted they might be."

Also, is this quote considered symbolism or is it a metaphor?

Answer 1

it basically means that the speaker wants to start over new, with all the past deeds and misdeeds forgotten. to have a new life, free of pains and manipulations. and it has both symbolism and metaphors.