Nathan Gow
English 248
Bradley Bleck
June 4, 2010
Intro
“The Use of Color Words by Edgar Allan Poe” brings light to readers of literature on the importance of simple color description in writing; a good outside example of this would be The Scarlet letter. As many people came to see the colors portrayed in the story had a greater meaning than simply adding “pizzazz” into Hawthorne’s writing. Colors have been, and continue to be, used for many reasons; foreshadowing, detail, even pieces of a literary puzzle for readers to catch on to. In the above article, Wilson O. Clough describes how Poe uses different colors in order to give his writing more detail.
Summary
Throughout time colors have been the center of many subtle and somewhat unspoken arguments. Red could be considered a color of passion, adventure, love; or it could be sin, bloodshed and ruin. Yellow could be life and well being, or perhaps a sign of shame. Many ethnic and religious groups had their “good” colors as well as their “bad”. History shows, though, that those “bad” colors were often those coveted by rivals. An example would be the Greeks and the Christians, while both were of the same people what they did not share were common interests. Christians, while being big fans of white (purity), green (meditation), and blue (worship), did approve of the Greek’s reds and yellows. They disliked the Greeks so much in fact, that they made such colors disgraceful to wear in their culture. To Poe and many other authors, their views on a better color did not taint their writing, but actually enhanced it.
The intentions of authors can often be misunderstood due to the various ways literature, and more specifically colors, can be interpreted. This goes back to the issue of religious standpoint, ethnicity, personal opinions, and even the how the word sounds when read aloud. Poe is credited as one of the best at relaying the information he wants through color. Colors such as grays, reds, and blacks are used effectively by Poe in order to paint vivid pictures in the minds of his readers. Even when using the lighter colors, white for example, Poe can use it to darken the story by accompanying it with darker backgrounds through writing.
Colors do not have to be specifically mentioned in order to give the reader a sense of them. While white can be directly stated, something like torch or even the sun can help to paint a picture of light which in turn bends back to white. But it extends even farther than that: blood, flowers, sun, torch, fire, grass, shadow lake, any of these can give a reader something to think off of so that they can put themselves inside a scene or even a stanza.
Unlike most authors, Poe didn’t write in great quantity, being a man who didn’t think writing that couldn’t be read in one sitting was valuable. In fact is total work comes to less than 2700 lines and 313, 100 words (Killis Campbell).
According to his writings Poe was much more at home with horror than he was with other focuses. Nevertheless his writings fell into four categories: Humorous (12), Ratiocination (logical reasoning, 6), Landscape Studies (5), and Horror (31).
Poe’s favoritism of color is very apparent when the use of color words is tallied. He used blacks, whites, and grays at least twice as many times as others, usually more. According to Clough those colors were effectively used in creating a deeper sense of Horror in Poe’s writing. There is often conversation on what lead Poe to create stories and poems that strayed from his “trademarked” style of horror to writings of the complete opposite: love, bliss, romance, and light. His reasoning is still pondered on by authors and scholars today. Some say that it may have been an attempt to disprove his supposed insanity or even trying to prove that he wasn’t a single-style writer. Either way readers began to see a change in style that began to wean out the use of colors.
Response
After reading this essay I really got a new view on how much the use of color can affect the way a story is read, and can even tell a story all on its own. Not only that but I got a much higher level of respect for Poe’s writings. He may have wrote a lot less than most authors of his time but he made every last line amazing, it’s regrettable that he didn’t live long enough to give us some more great literature. The use of colors really makes a vast difference in writing and I will take this as incentive to add more description through colors in my own writing. I think that others should as well seeing as how some of the best use it constantly in their own writing.