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Colour symbolism essay
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Frank L. Baum uses many colors through the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the colors he uses symbolize many different thinks and people may interpret differently. The color white represents good witches and wizards. White symbolizes the purity and good nature of the good witches. The color black represents the bad witches. Black represents darkness and evil. In this story the good side always wins, this could be shown by the witches clothing. In darkness or blackness even the smallest white or light will shine through the darkness. These are just a few of the many colors used to symbolize different things in the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Throughout the story, many different colors are used. Every color in the rainbow can be seen throughout the story. One major example is the yellow brick road the Dorthy has to travel down in order to get the the Land of Oz. The color yellow is interpreted in many different ways by different people. To me the color yellow symbolizes happiness and joy. The yellow brick road is what leads Dorthy and her friends to the magical wizard, and once they reach him I am sure that they will be filled with joy and happiness. I remember that the color yellow symbolizes joy by thinking of the sun, which starts a new day and
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The slippers represent different things to different characters in the story. To Dorthy, they are her way home, and the color red represents hope. Like how the color red appears in the American flag, when US citizens see the colors of the flag, they feel hopeful for things to be okay and they feel free. However, other people feel differently about the color of our flag. If a citizen in Iraq saw our flag, they would be in fear, just like how the Wicked Witch of the West fears Dorthy and the red slippers. She tries to get the slippers from Dorthy many times. The witch would see the color red as a symbol for
Frank Baum accurately presented ideas of occult symbolism in The Wizard of Oz, through aspects of illumination, enlightenment, and self-realization. This was accomplished by depicting multiple characters’ desires and needs, and others as guides to enlightenment. Baum would agree with the quote above, saying that The Wizard of Oz does focus on occult symbolism, and a journey to self-understanding. Everything one has experienced in life leads to self-realization and further, wisdom. Furthermore, the quote “Real power, for good or ill, lies with the women” (DATABASE) states that women have power as much as men do. The young heroine displays this by saving her male companions along her journey and completing her
Yellow represents many things in this novel, without the references to it; the plot and themes would be completely different. The raft represented false security and escape for Rayona, but also relief when she was able to share her secret with Evelyn. For Christine the color yellow represents failure when she could not cross the bridge, but near the end of her life, the yellow symbolized safety and contentment.
L. Frank Baum achieved a fairy tale classic in his work of The Wizard of Oz. In the story, colors are used repeatedly to directly or indirectly give feeling and meaning to the setting.Color is a crucial imagery factor in a piece of writing. It lets a reader connect and use their imagination to make the words come alive in their heads. Baum specifically uses the colors; gray, yellow, and green. The novel is filled with many mood changes using these colors.
Many human beings recognize the color red as a meaning of love; however, the meaning of passion and violence comes to mind during this late fourteenth-century poem. The symbol of the color red presented throughout the poem, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” represents passion and violence. The meaning of passion was disbelieving at first; however, after rereading, it was easy to notice Sir Gawain’s passion to be the one to accept the challenge to the Green Knight. Before King Arthur was about to strike the Green Knight, Gawain stepped in and said, “I stake my claim. May this melee be mine” (341-342). Clearly, he was passionate enough to risk his own life in the future, only to cut the Green Knights head off. The color red symbolizes as an
The main characters follow a brick road made of yellow, a sort of guiding light, to find the Wizard so that he may provide them with what they desire most. However, the road is not a beacon, just as the Emerald City is not truly green. Both are illusions. In order to enter the city the main characters are required to wear green spectacles that are locked onto their heads. The Guardian of the Gate explains that if Dorothy and her friends do “not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind” them. He further explains that “even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day.” This edict was enacted by Oz “when the City was first built.” What the characters do not realize is that by being forced to wear green glasses, Oz controls how they perceive the world. Dorothy and her friends are as enslaved by Oz as much as the Munchkins and Winkies have been held in bondage by the witches. Oz is more deceptive because he deceives everyone into wanting to wear the glasses in order to be “dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City.” The color green symbolizes the concept of success and vitality. In the Emerald City “everyone seem[s] happy and contented and prosperous.” Baum uses the verb “seems” to suggest that this may be a false notion. When Dorothy leaves the Emerald City and removes her green glasses she notices the silk dress is “no longer green, but pure
Throughout history, colors have been used as symbols in literature. When people see or hear certain colors, they automatically associate them with symbols and feelings. For example, red is love, blue is sadness, and purple is royalty. Many of these symbols are universal. You could go anywhere in the world and ask someone how yellow makes them feel, and they would say happy. Some great examples of color symbolism are in the novel The Great Gatsby. Well-known symbols as well as new meanings are used to enrich the story. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he used the colors gold, white, green and blue to symbolize deeper meanings.
The green light stands for something more substantial; it represents more than just hope for Daisy’s return, but also the hazy future. Nick stated that Gatsby believes in the green light, the “organic future”. Although the green light is the future, Gatsby is still wrapped up in the dreams of the past. White traditionally symbolizes purity and innocence, and there is no doubt that Fitzgerald wants to underscore the ironic disparity between the ostensible purity of Daisy and Jordan and their actual corruption. The emphasis of the color yellow is portrayed as decay and corruption.
middle of paper ... ... The color of black can actually be good or bad depending on which character is wearing it or seeing it. The Princess Bride actually does contain archetypes such as colors (black) that render the story new to be unlike other stories. The Princess Bride contains many archetypes that render the story new within the color of black, the unhealable wound, and the friendly beast.
Color is used very effectively as a tool of symbolism in Heart of Darkness. Colors, especially black and white, are used to symbolize evil (black) and good (white). Other colors are also used, although less often than black and white. Throughout the story, people are thought to have white souls or black souls depending on their innate “goodness” or “badness” or the role they are fulfilling at the time. The color of a person’s soul is often contrasted to the color of their skin. A black- souled, white-skinned person is thought to be evil and dishonest. “I met a white man in such an unexpected elegance of getup…” (Conrad p.21). This demonstrates how a white man was not expected to be a good person. Elegance of dress was unexpected because the man was white. In comparison, a white-souled, black-skinned person is thought to be truthful and full of integrity. “An athletic black belonging to some coast tribe and educated by my poor predecessor….thought all the world of himself.” (Conrad p.45). People are described as black with hatred regardless of skin color. This is further evidence of black being used synonymously with evil. Black isn’t just used to describe evil people. “Often far away, I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall…” (Conrad p. 14.) The symbolism of black wool at the door of Darkness is clearly pointing to evil, and further supports black as evil. Heath 2 Colors other than black and white are used to describe moods and attitudes past the basic good and evil. Red signifies industry. “There was a vast amount of red - good to see at any time because one knows that some real work is done in there.” (Conrad p.13). Yellow is seen as a cowardly color. “I was going into the yellow. Dead in the center.” (Conrad p.13). Pale denotes Death. It is also used this way in the Bible, “the Pale horse and his rider Death”, Revelations 6:8. “She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning. It was more than a year since his death…” (Conrad p. 72-73). The use of color is effective in the story for a variety of reasons. First, it is easy to understand.
Colors, are something to be determine, not just colors, they mean many things depending on the way people analyze them. Colors are important in life, not only in life but also in books. One book that really describes that is The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, colors represent many different things. One of the major colors are yellow and gold. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes these colors and associates them with different things. For example, gold represents real wealth and yellow represents fake gold. Fitzgerald associates colors with different things by really describing them in depth. For example, the green light at Daisy’s is just a green light, but Fitzgerald made it so that it would represent much more than that and that is what made The Great Gatsby such a great novel. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald associates yellow and gold in depth with different things. In life people sometimes make bad decisions and do bad things to gain money. Very similar to the novel, where Jay Gatsby gains money from bad ways, while he could have gained it from good ways.
The use of color inside the house is symbolic to the mood. The almost yellow fluorescent lighting is ironic when compared to the first image of the painting since the painting had set the expectations of an enthusiastic film. The yellow tint throughout the house is also conflicting since yellow is known to be a luminous color. Yellow usually represents happiness and warmth which are emotions that lacks in the Bishop household. The dim lighting also mirrors the gloomy and dark weather outside. An extreme long shot of the outside house captures the darkness of the sky which prompts unhappy emotions. When Susy proceeds outside to check the mailbox the change in weather is instantly noticeable since the sky transitioned from gray to blue and the
Red ruby slippers. Green emerald city. Yellow brick road. These are just of the few iconic colors that bring to life The Wizard of Oz film. But before color even gets introduced, we see Dorothy in a monotone world of black and white with a sepia toned film. Set in the middle of Kansas, the viewer gets a sense of boredom and bareness. It seems as if the only people in that whole state are Dorothy, her immediate family and the farmhands! However, after her house gets lifted up and redeposited, she opens the door to a world of Technicolor. Your eyes are shocked as the screen is filled with various bright colors. The colors of Munchkin Land symbolize a vibrant, surreal, dreamlike adventure. It creates moods of happiness and security for the viewer as we are transported back to a world we know; color. In his article Color and Storytelling in Films, Robert Mills says, “Kansas is described as grey and lifeless whilst
The colors in the hat are extremely significant. Its purple velvet flap creates the image of royalty, and the rest of it, green, represents money. This is the only time that green is mentioned in the story, for money is not something that they have, which even the mother cannot dispute. In addition to the hat, the sky of their once “fashionable” neighborhood is the color of “a dying violet,” and the house...
F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes the color yellow to symbolize moral deterioration and depravity. F. Scott Fitzgerald writes, “The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair (18).” F. Scott Fitzgerald is referring to Tom and Daisy Buchannan and he is signifying that Tom is slowly progressing towards moral decay. In the novel, there are several incidents that prove Tom is in fact, progressing towards moral decay. First, Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Second, Tom does not like Jay Gatsby, and several times he attempts to prove that Gatsby is not who he claims he is. Tom even goes as far as to hire a detective in his attempts to prove that Gatsby is not who he claims he is.
Every color mentioned has a meaning, even if it may not seem it. White and green are the main colors mentioned in the novel. Whites can often be portrayed as wholesome and innocent. However, in this novel, white actually represents the false purity or decency in some of these characters. Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker, a friend of Daisy’s, are always seen wearing white.