Page 62 - Revista Noastra Nr.53-54 (2020)

IDEI ÎN DIALOG

prof. Irina BICESCU

Colour in Literature

The concept of colour, defined as the property ter” that symbolizes both sin and the extremes of love.
of light as seen by people, has forever been used by In gothic literature it symbolizes both passion and hell,
authors as a symbol to help readers get a better grasp fire burning bright and hot being therefore connected
of characters, places and events, creating thus somet- to sin. It is also the colour of blood, the colour of heart.
hing more memorable for them due to the emotional Sometimes red points the finger at corrupted charac-
implications rendered by the wealth of meanings one ters, as in the red that stains the murderers’ hands in
usually attaches to colours. But what is colour symbo- Shakespeare`s “Julius Caesar”.
lism in literature all about? Blue can symbolize depression and sadness
even if it usually sends to calm and peace, depending
on the shade and surrounding description. It is often
linked with water, which if blue – clear, crystal and
clean – is usually cleansing and purifying. Associated
with Mary, who is often painted in religious images as
wearing blue, it can have connotations of virtue and
piety. In “The Great Gatsby” blue represents Gatsby`s
illusions, his deeply romantic dreams of unreality.
Yellow is a cheerful, intellectual colour. It also
represents loyalty but in “The Catcher in the Rye”, Hol-
den describes himself as “yellow” meaning that he is
actually a coward. Yellow can be gold, the colour of
money and class, but also fake-gold, facade and show
rather than substance. Particularly in older literature,
yellow also symbolizes sickness or cowardice (perhaps
due to the yellowing of the skin due to jaundice, a liver
disease, especially as “lily-livered” is an insult to a co-
ward too).
Black is evil, death, sadness, mourning, grief.
Used in settings to create mystery and something si-
nister it can often be used to hide things, wherefrom
the secretive connotaion. It is also a colour used in got-
hic literature to symbolize death, power, mystery, and
fear. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” makes use of a
black bird to symbolize death. Hamlet makes himself
into a rebel in black, as he wears funeral clothing to
his mother’s over-hasty second wedding.
White, an untouched, untainted colour, brings
to mind innocence and purity, and is often used to
symbolize goodness as in the white queen in “The Wi-
It is common nature that colours touch us, zard of Oz”. But it is also worn by the powerful sorce-
often without us even acknowledging that they make ress, the infamous White Witch in The Chronicles of
us think or behave in different ways and writers take Narnia. In “The Great Gatsby” when Nick Carraway ar-
advantage of the psychology of colours in order to eli- rives at the Buchanans` the characters and the home
cit emotion from readers. Consider the three traditio- are bathed in white even if most of them are described
nal primary colours to be found all around us: red, as selfish and careless.
yellow and blue, and the different effects they are li- Green is used in “The Lord of the Flies” to re-
kely to have on human psychology. Red can be percei- present innocence and immaturity, growth and vitality.
ved as stimulating and friendly, but also as aggressive Green is about nature, about new life, and rebirth. It
and demanding. Blue can be soothing and it relaxes is also about endurance and honour (Gawain and the
the mind, however, it can be cold and unfriendly. Yel- Green Knight). Green has yet negative connotations
low will lift our moods and self-esteem but too much that include jealousy – Othello’s “green eyed monster”
of it can even cause anxiety. – and being inexperienced (being ‘green’, or new). In
In literature red usually denotes love, although American literature, green is sometimes the colour of
resentful and passionate, dissolute love. It is conside- money, which equals greed. In English literature, it is
red to be one of the most powerful colours, fearless thought of as a supernatural colour, due mainly to the
and resourceful but also seductive, wicked and tem- associations with nature – fairies, magical creatures,
pting, as the crimson-red in Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Let- spells, all having a green tinge. On the other hand, in
58 grafica: Andrei Rusu REVISTA NOASTRĂ nr. 53/54