Friday, February 19, 2016
Color and Thought-- Becky
Section 40:
“When I talk about color and hope, or color and despair, I am not talking about the red of a stoplight, a periwinkle line on the white felt oval of a pregnancy test, or a black sail strung from a ship’s mast. I am trying to talk about what blue means, or what it means to me, apart from meaning.”
Blue isn’t only a color. It’s an emotion, a means of expression, and a representation of nature. Nelson explains this idea in Bluets. This specific section illustrates how Nelson draws a personal connection between her life and the color blue. She does not simply speak about the meaning of blue as told by the dictionary or encyclopedia; she speaks of the meaning of blue to her. Nelson is describing both her perspective on the color blue, as well as the ways in which others perceive blue. She does not limit her writing to only her thoughts and ideas; she expands and researches other’s thoughts and ideas about blue and uses these ideas to further elaborate on her own. She recognizes the minor hints and specks of blue in nature, in her life, in other’s lives. For Nelson, blue is the color she chooses because of her own personal connections with it. I believe that the specific color blue is not entirely significant, but it is how colors themselves relate so much to our lives in symbolic and literal ways. Colors play such a large role in everyone’s lives, and I believe Nelson is attempting to show her audience this. While reading, I thought about the colors that impact my life significantly. Nelson has elicited this wondering from within me that I don’t often think about. It has caused me to think about things that are so prevalent in my life, yet become such an unconscious part of my life. The overarching goal of this book is to provoke thought from the audience; it is to bring out the thinker, the abstract thoughts.
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