Friday, November 14, 2014
Shakespeare, Should He Be Afeared That We Think He Didn't Write King Lear?
In class the other day, we began to discuss the controversy surrounding whether or not Shakespeare wrote his own plays. It is true that there are certain scenes in his plays that were clearly written by someone else because they lacked the syntax and finesse characteristic of the rest of Shakespeare's work. Many people believe that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays because some of them include information that required extensive legal knowledge, indicate that the author was well-traveled, and had a higher education, none of which historians are able to attribute to Shakespeare. There are no documents pertaining to his plays and nothing written in his own hand. A handful of Shakespeare's documents have been discovered, including his will and a document regarding financial transactions, but none of them mention his plays. However, in his defense, in Shakespeare's time, very few records have survived regarding education, and even so, one doesn't have to have attended Harvard in order to write exquisitely. Also, no one questioned his authorship until around two hundred years later, during a time when people were enamored with conspiracy theories. Over the years, many people have been proposed as the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare. They are so numerous that it would be impossible to list them all here, although there are two candidates that are of particular consequence: Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon. Below are the links to two interesting articles that discuss this issue. Read them and decide for yourself whether or not you believe the man we attribute some of the finest literature in to English language to was the extraordinary wordsmith he has been made out to be.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/reactions/murphyarticle.html
http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/10/did-shakespeare-really-write-his-plays-a-few-theories-examined/
I am currently trying to read Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare by James Shapiro, the leading authority on the Pro-Shakespeare argument. This might take me a while, as it is rather dense reading, but I will do my best to update this post if I discover anything interesting.
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While it's true that the lack of evidence supporting the fact that Shakespeare wrote his plays is quite unsettling, this lack of evidence is not a source of evidence supporting others either. There is no documentation of Francis Bacon writing the plays just like there is none for Shakespeare. I feel as if just because it sounds like an aristocrat doesn't mean an aristocrat had to have written it. Writers constantly narrate in voices that are not necessarily their own. Also, one does not need to be an aristocrat to know the life of an aristocrat, as pointed out in one of the articles. Everyone knows about the huge houses and fancy sports cars and flash clothing that celebrities wear, but everyone isn't a celebrity. It's just things that are general knowledge. Because of this, I believe that there is no reason to doubt that Shakespeare wrote it, although there is really no way to prove if he did or didn't
ReplyDeleteWarmth vs. Smell, Adverbs, and Marble
ReplyDeleteIn The Keep there is a theme of fantasy vs. reality; and how the two collide and coincide with each other. The words warmth come up multiple times—this symbol has to do with fantasy. Warmth symbolizes the imagination in an object. Evidence of this is in the cave when “Danny puts his hand on his cousins back… [and he feels] how warm he was” (15). Warmth is brought up again with Howard when he grips Danny with his hands and Danny feels “the heat pouring out of them” (46). Howards wife also mentions that the imagination pool “has to be warm, because it is always cold her during night, even in the summer” (50). Howard and the imagination pool are warm, the warmth symbolizes being imaginative.
The theme of fantasy or imagination is reality, and it is touched upon multiple times thus far into the book. Smell, adverbs, and marble are all mentioned numerous times and they all symbolize reality and how in your face it can be. The sense of smell and smells is alluded to when Howard remarks, “I [he] has a lousy sense of smell. Sometimes I [he] think it’s a blessing” (44). Howard’s lack of sense of smell represents is inability to see reality and he thinks that sometimes it is a blessing. The smells that Danny is experiencing the intensity of these smells are touched upon throughout the book. One such time is when Danny drops his satellite dish in the imagination pool and try’s to reach out and get it, “that’s when the smell got him—oh god what a smell:5not rot but something after a rot, the smell of old pollen, bad breath…” (74). The smell of the pool, how overwhelming it is, symbolizes how reality is brutal and can hit home very hard. The imagination pools smells so terribly to Danny because Danny has no imagination, therefore he lacks the ability to ignore smells.
Another symbol of reality and how overwhelming it can be is adverbs. Danny and Nora have a very heart-felt conversation about adverbs. Nora declares “that adverbs are the worse… [Danny speaking] Is that why you are here, to get away from all the adverbs in New York? [Nora responds] there is no getting away from adverbs. They are rampant.” Adverbs are symbolic of people that have no imagination, and a good sense on reality. Nora says that these types of people are everywhere and there is no getting away from reality. This is hinting at the fact that even if you run away from your reality it still follows you everywhere you go, and hangs over your head.
The last symbol of reality is marble. Marble represents stability, and a break from all of the excitement. Marble is an in-between of reality and fantasy, a middle ground, neither one nor the other. Marble is mentioned multiple times often in the context of smell and imagination; the use of the word is subtle to symbolize the infrequency of it in real life. When Danny pushes the dish into the water he “flatten[s] himself gut-down on the marble” to retrieve it. After he fails to he “ease[s] himself back onto the marble” (74). Also when Danny is talking to Martha he trips and “the putrid pool was leering up at him; he was falling towards it! Danny failed wildly the other way and somehow he vaulted onto the marble” (73). Marble seems to save Danny from multiple situations and keeps him from falling into the imagination pool, it is the barrier between the balance of both and complete fantasy.
The Number Two
ReplyDeleteIn The Keep the numbers are brought up multiple times, but the number two is seen most often and symbolizes two people: Danny and Howard. The number two is introduced in the first paragraph of the book, with the “two round towers with an arch between them and across that arch was an iron gate that looked like it hadn’t moved in three-hundred years or maybe ever” (1). The two towers symbolize Danny and Howard and the arch is their relationship; which is “solid as hell” and heavily guarded (1). More is revealed about the castle when Danny remarks that “the towers had those square indentations around the top that little kids put on castles when the draw them” (1). Hinting at that the towers still have their square indentations, which symbolizes innocence because children put them on castles. The number two is also mentioned when Danny talks about Alto. Danny says, “True alto works in two ways: you saw but you could also be seen, you knew and were known. Two way recognition” (6). Danny is talking indirectly about his relationship with Howard; Danny and Howard both know that Danny pushed Howard into the pool, yet the don’t acknowledge the fact that he did, and don’t talk about.
The number two is also brought up when Danny drops the dish in the water and he is holding onto it “with two fingers of each hand and trying to ease it back out” (74). The two fingers on each hand symbolizes Danny and Howard, and the satellite dish (technology that is blocking his imagination) is barely being hung onto; until Danny lets go because “Danny would have to reach underwater with his hand, both hands, his head, all of him, dive in and dredge the thing back out, and he couldn’t do that. The smell told him not to; No, it said, stay away because a thing that smells like that is going to kill you” (74). Danny is willing to let technology, the thing that is holding him back from having an imagination, be erased because he doesn’t want to dive into the imagination pool because the smell (the imagination of the pool) is too much for him.
Two is brought up with the pool again when Howard tell Danny about the twins.
Howard: There used to be a tower, right where that pool is. Round—see those broken stones around the edges? It had a well, so after the tower collapsed they built a pool in the ruin. Nifty, eh? Anyhow this is where they drowned.
Danny: Who drowned? The smell was making his nose run.
The von Ausblinker twins. A boy and a girl, 12 years old. (43)
In this passage the twins drown (that are 12) in the imagination pool, which doesn’t add much positivity to the imagination pool—perhaps this symbolizes that even imagination can be somber. The smell of the situation also bothered Danny, representing that the situation smells of reality. Another interesting part of this passage is when Howard says that there was once a tower where the pool is until it collapsed, and there was a well underneath the tower so they built the imagination pool. My theory is that the tower is Howard and he collapses. There is a well underneath the tower, similar to the cave pool being underneath the surface. Somehow they turn the well into a positive thing, an imagination pool. I think Egan is foreshadowing that Howard ends up turning his incident into something positive, perhaps he uses it to improve his relationship with Danny.
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ReplyDeleteChapter 6: Themes, Symbols, and Thoughts
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 6 the theme of stability is touched on multiple times, strictly in the context of the castle. The Baroness talks about how she “was born here [the castle]” and how she “know[s] every cupboard and drawer and stone, every door and every hall. I mean before [her] time there were eighty generation of the von Ausblinkers” (88). She is a baroness, a title that “survives hundreds of years of history” (89). This idea that someone could do the same thing for so long shocks Danny because “at times he had trouble believing that one chain of days connected his first day in New York” (89). “That amount of time was nothing compared to what the baroness was talking about. Centuries! It thrilled him to think about it!” (89). The idea of being so grounded that a family doesn’t move for centuries shock Danny because he has trouble holding the same job for a couple of weeks. Danny admires the stability of a situation like that and wishes to make it his reality.
The symbol of the keep is also brought up in Chapter 6. The keep is a symbol for a person mind, which lead the audience to believe that chapter 6 takes place completely in Danny’s head and he imagines the whole thing. The castles keep “is the tallest, strongest part of the castle, where everyone fled if the walls were breached. The keep hasn’t surrendered in nine hundred years…” (91). The castle’s keep has been very stable, whose keep (mind) is represents has yet to revealed, because no one of the characters seem to be that stable. The walls of the castle could symbolize the false identity, a shell that a person puts up when they want hide their true self. When the walls are breached a person retreats to their mind, the safest place apparently.
One thing that the book is very through about is Danny’s relationships with woman. The audience knows that he enjoys older woman, and he is crude in the way he objectifies woman; Danny hints at the baroness in this way. When he first sees her he thinks she is a young blonde broad, and when he later finds out that she is almost 100 years old he lets that do little to deter him. He shares his thought with the reader multiple times “He wondered if all her skin could be this soft. The idea made him a little sick” (86). “The baroness smiled, that beautiful mouth coming apart in a way that most of knocked people out when she was younger” (87). He eventually kisses her, and shares that “the taste of her mouth was like wine” (97). This shows that Danny likes adults and people that have life experience and are grown up, but he doesn’t want to grow up himself.
Another symbol in this chapter is windows. Windows are, at the most literal level, a barrier between inside and outside and each side can see each other. It symbolizes an opening into a person’s soul. In this passage Danny is talking about the window in the keep:
He looked at the curtain rod and saw that the brackets holding it up were barely attached to the wall, old screws slipping in and out of there holes [sexual reference? But I hope not]. Danny had no talent for home repair, but even he could manage this.
Danny: Have you got a screwdriver? And a Hammer?
Baroness: Of course not. You should have brought the tools you needed. (85)
The outside of the window symbolizes reality, and inside of the keep symbolizes imagination or fantasy. The curtain, the only thing stopping the two from seeing each other, represents the barrier between reality and imagination; a barrier that is slipping. Danny knows he can fix this, (i.e. has the potential too), but he lack the tools (the courage and drive) which he should of brought with him.
Chapter 7: Flashlights and Shoeboxes
ReplyDeleteFlashlights have been mentioned multiple times in the book, but its most concentrated use is in Chapter 7. Flashlights are typically used to see in the dark, they run on batteries; so they are somewhat unreliable, and they are usually used in situations that are scary. In Chapter 1 when the characters are in the cave “Rafe’s flashlight beam… was squiggling the light all over the walls” (14). This communicates that the characters were ecstatic and nervous which is what the probably were feeling like; it serves as widow into what the characters are feeling. Flashlight are touched upon again in the opening paragraph is chapter 7:
“When I open my eyes, there’s a flashlight so close to my face I can feel the heat from the puny bulb. It’s got me too blind to see who’s behind me …It’s Davis…Davis moves the flashlight back a little, but it’s still in my eyes. He’s looking at me like there’s something hidden behind my skin that he wants to see. (98)
The flashlight here is blinding Ray, possibly symbolizing how he feels lost and unsure of what to do with his life. It’s interesting that the flashlight stops his eyes (the widow to a person’s soul) from working, possibly this symbolizes that Ray is trying to hide who he is, or that Ray is unsure who he is. Davis is trying to see if he is hiding something but by doing that he is stopping himself from accomplishing that goal. Flashlights come up again when Ray see’s that there are flashlight batteries in the shoebox. This makes sense because the shoebox shows how dead people feel.
Ray’s shoebox is another symbol in this chapter. The Shoebox, apparently, allows him to hear “the voices of the dead… all that love, all that pain, all that stuff that people feel—not just me and you, brother, but everyone, everyone who’s ever walked this beautiful green plant” (104). Although this seems like a ridiculous idea, Davis reasons that when inventors first create something new it seems crazy at first but later everyone understands it. This reasoning even has Ray starting to question if the box does do what Davis says it does. Many colors are brought up with the box. First the box is hidden under a red and white-checkered tablecloth, possibly symbolizing the blood (red) and innocence (white) of people that died. Also the box is painter orange, a new color in the book. Orange could symbolize autumn with the leaves turning orange or also in Christianity orange symbolizes joy. In eastern cultures such as China the color orange is a symbol of love or creativity. Ray also observes that the shoebox contains “dust of every color” (103), possibly symbolizing the different emotions that people have felt. My theory is that Davis only built the shoebox because he needed something to do in order to remain sane. He already exercises an absurd amount and remains up all night reading books, but I wonder why he didn’t take the writing course. I guess that he applied but was deemed to unstable to get in. I don’t think he can be trusted.
Thoughts on Chapter 10:
ReplyDeleteOne symbol that comes up sparsely in previous chapters is cigarettes (Nora smoking)—however, the reader is reintroduced and given a greater context of this symbol in Chapter 10. This instance being with Holly, when Ray sees her exiting her car.
“She’s smoking that’s the first shock that I get. Usually I can smell it on a woman when she smokes, her hands and hair and breath, but with Holly I get no hint… But watching Holly take a long drag outside her car, shielding her eyes from the sun, I’m not disgusted. I’m impressed. That she has been smoking all this time and I didn’t even know. (140)
Smoking cigarettes symbolizes living in a fantasy world. Holly and Nora smoke not because they are trying to escape their reality, but they are trying to alter it. Smoking represents a compromise between fantasy and reality, a mixture. However fantasy and reality cannot mix together, and if a person tries to do that it will lead to a disaster, and the person will eventually have to pick a side. When Holly and Ray are talking during the break Ray acknowledges that “even though [he is] standing right in front of Holly, close enough that [he] could put out [his] hand, [he] could touch her, but [he] still [couldn’t] smell the smoke. Not a trace of it” (144). Here Holly is completely hiding the smell of smoke (choosing fantasy), but later in the conversation “something peels of her face and for a second she looks raw, almost scared” (144), and the reality of her situation and how she feels about it shines through (she choses reality). Nora has yet to choose a side, but I feel she is leaning towards fantasy.
One symbol that is seen throughout the book, but differently in Chapter 10 is the color green. Green so far has been mostly positive, it symbolizes rebirth and life, but in this chapter it takes on a different meaning. It becomes a symbol of concealment of evil. Evidence to support this is that the “prisoners [wear] green khakis” (142). Bad people (prisoners) wearing a color that symbolizes life, very contradicting. Also when Ray is stabbed by Tom-Tom the color green is brought up again.
“[Tom-Tom has] a gecko on each shoulder and another one climbing between the buttons [on his] shirt. Those little bright faces next to Tom-Tom’s dried-out toothless head gave [him] a pain in my chest… [Then when Ray fails realize Tom-Tom is trying to stab him he wonders] How did he miss it? Did the geckos trip him up? (148).
Ray only failed to realize that Tom-Tom was trying to stab him because the geckos distracted him from the evil intentions of his assailant.
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ReplyDeleteColors in The Keep Part I
ReplyDeleteColors are a recurring symbol in all literature and often play an intricate and detailed part in themes and plot. The use of color is seen continuously and is portrayed in a complex manner in The Keep. This is simply an attempt to make sense of it all; the colors in the novel. They include: white, black, green, yellow, red, blue, purple, orange, gold, silver, gray, and pink.
Perhaps the most commonly used color in the novel is black. It is the easiest symbol to unpack; it is a symbol of death, evil, and destruction. Some examples of evidence to support this are: the Baroness has “angry black eyes” (85), “[Danny] fell into the black pool [when he dies]” (220), and after Danny finishes the conversation with Martha where she calls Danny an “asshole… the sun moves behind it [the castle] and it wasn’t gold anymore, it was almost black” (176). It is interesting that the imagination pool is black; possibly symbolizing that imagination is not always good. Another intriguing detail is that when she is on the phone with him, Martha doesn’t recognize Danny and thinks he is someone else. My theory is that this represents how Danny has changed by taking control of his life and Martha doesn’t recognize the new Danny. Also, black is usually associated with reality, and that is because Egan sees reality as being harsh and overwhelming. In today’s culture, black is often foreboding for sinister events, and that is how Egan perceives reality.
White is also frequently mentioned in the novel and it is fairly easy to determine what it symbolizes. White has a variety of meanings; the main interpretations that the color takes on are innocence, rebirth, and an agent of concealment. Evidence to support this includes when Danny sees the little girl with “long and white arms” (87); also when the Baroness starts appearing younger “her hair [becomes] heavy and gold around her white neck” (97). White can also be an agent of concealment. This is seen multiple times, such as when the outside of Meghan’s private screen is “plain white” (231) and when Davis hides his box behind a “red-and-white checkered blanket” (102). White, as the opposite of black, also represents the opposite of reality: fantasy. This makes sense because when a person lives in a world of their own, they can make up whatever they want; this is similar to an artist with a white canvas.
The color green is brought up many times in the book; however, one has to dig a little deeper to uncover the meanings behind this color. For most of the book, green is symbol of life, rebirth, and possibility. Evidence to support this is that both pools in the story are green and tell a story of rebirth, and starting life anew. Also Ann wears a “green and white plaid shirt” and Ann is caring and compassionate. Green changes throughout the book and becomes more of a symbol of concealment of evil. Evidence to support this is that the “prisoners [wear] green khakis” (142). Bad people (prisoners) wearing a color that symbolizes life is quite contradictory. Also when Ray is stabbed by Tom-Tom the color green is brought up again.
“[Tom-Tom has] a gecko on each shoulder and another one climbing between the buttons [on his] shirt. Those little bright faces next to Tom-Tom’s dried-out toothless head gave [him] a pain in my chest… [Then when Ray fails realize Tom-Tom is trying to stab him he wonders] How did he miss it? Did the geckos trip him up? (148).
Ray only failed to realize that Tom-Tom was trying to stab him because the geckos distracted him from the evil intentions of his assailant. Furthermore, when Holly is hiding Ray’s manuscript from the police she buries it in “a big green garbage bag” (225).
Colors in The Keep Part II
ReplyDeleteYellow is used less frequently in the book and is only mentioned in small details and descriptions of a person. Yellow is a symbol of objects or people that are damaging, sinful, and generally negative. Evidence to support this is that the baroness “has some pale yellow still left in her thick white hair” (85), when Danny wakes up on an “old yellow pillow” (109) after sleeping with the baroness, and when Danny is looking for his clothes he finds “letters tied up in shredded yellow ribbons” (113). Also, when the group is in the tunnels, a place that is considered to be negative, he observes that the tunnels are made out of “thin yellow bricks” (199), and that there are “yellow skulls” (200), lying on the floor. Yellow begins to develop as more of a symbol of concealment, when Holly illegally visits Ray at the hospital in “a yellow paper outfit and a [yellow] mask” (187), but later in the conversation Ray notices “what she wears for her other job [below the] yellow paper collar” (188). However, this is the only time when the color yellow is seen as hiding something beneath it.
Red comes up more frequently in the story than yellow, but not as much as black or white. Also, red is less noticeable; it does not stand out in the book. This possibly represents how this color is omnipresent in all aspects of life, but in small ways. Red is a symbol of moral corruption, cruelty, and power. This becomes evident with “the rapist… [named] Red” (142). Also, when Danny is in the hospital and notices Benjy’s “long-sleeved shirt with red fish… [with] big red fish eating small red fish… [and then he wonders] were all the fish the same” (132), representing how Danny is starting to realize that all people are born with equal power, and a person can choose how to wield that power. Furthermore, Ray notices “the sky is red” (148), right before he is stabbed. In the first chapter, the keep has “a red light shining through a window near the top” (7), possibly foreshadowing how much pain the keep is going to cause the characters.
Blue is a color that is scattered in the beginning of the novel but becomes more frequent towards the end. Blue is a symbol of youth, innocence, and happiness. Evidence to support this is that after the fight in the class Ray notices Holly has “pale blue eyes” (66), when Danny fantasizes that the baroness is a young girl she wears a “blue-green sleeveless dress” (83), the radio shoebox has “half a blue button “ (105) in it, Ann wears “a soft blue robe” (138), and Danny remembers “the blue hose he’d used to help his dad water the bushes along the driveway” (220). However, in Part III this symbol transforms into something darker when Holly remembers the last breakout.
“The last break was seventeen years ago, when I was senior in high school, people still talk about that one. Three guys used homemade stilts to scale both fences, then hid in the home of a family that was out of town. They sewed up their gashes with sewing needles and blue thread. I always remembered that, how the thread was blue. By the time they were caught they’d taken two hostages, shot a horse and burned down a barn to the ground.” (230)
In this passage, blue is associated with criminals and destruction.
Colors in The Keep Part III
ReplyDeleteThe color purple takes on multiple meanings throughout the book; however, unlike other colors, purple evolves in a positive way throughout the novel. Purple is a symbol of royalty and tragedy, but then becomes symbolic of excitement and childhood. This becomes evident through Nora having “purple dreadlocks” (29), the twins wearing “purple velvet” in the picture that Danny sees in the keep (93), on the inside of Meghan’s private corner there is a “purple feather” (231), and when Holly says Ray brought back “pure excitement… [like] Christmas, grape cool aid, playing in a tree house…” (243). Purple is also brought up multiple times in context with clouds and sunsets possibly representing how soft and fragile childhood and positivity are. Lastly, if purple had to be grouped into either reality or fantasy, purple would take the side of fantasy and evidence to support this is that Ann’s hair “shine[s] purple in the sun” (49).
Orange is used very sparsely in the keep, and is usually mentioned in the context of either the sky or fire. Orange is a symbol of uncertainty and phenomenon. It symbolizes the craziness of life and how unpredictable life can be. Evidence of this includes that the radio to dead people is “orange” (103), Holly remarks that there is a “purple-orange sunset in from outside the window”(250), Danny sees “the burned-out sunset that had left an orange stain low in the sky” before sleeping with the baroness (89), Danny sees “an orange blur at [his] feet” right after his fall (124), and Danny ”knowing hours had passed [from] the way the light slanted over the hills, orange and thick as paint” (172). Either after a point of high action passes or right before it’s about to happen, the color orange appears. Orange comes up in the context of the sun multiple times; that is because the sun gives life to everything, and with this life, it gives uncertainty and the potential for anything to happen.
The color gold is a symbol of royalty at first, and then becomes a symbol of perception and how what you see doesn’t necessarily have to be real. Gold questions the reality of sight. This can be seen when Danny sees “a lot of the color gold” (84) in the keep; when Danny sees a “mirror with a gold outline” (93) and then when Danny sees his reflection in the same mirror, but “he avoid[s] looking into it” (163); when Danny hallucinates that the baroness is young, he sees her with “heavy golden hair” (95); when Holly finds the keep using her computer (technology is fake), the picture has “golden sunlight” (244); when Meghan has “a golden locket around her neck, but who gave it to her is anyone’s guess” (245); and when Danny is in the town “the brightness of everything hurts his eyes [and] the castle was on the tallest hill, bathed in golden sunlight (166), but later “the sun moved behind the castle, and it wasn’t gold anymore, it was almost black” (173).
Silver, the color and the element, is a symbol of the transformation from chaos or disorder to serenity and order. Evidence to support this includes: right after Danny wakes up from sleeping with the baroness he finds ”two jeweled rings on a silver stand” (112), Holly puts her “electronics in a silver box” (248), and Holly “hear[ing the dinner] bell [that] ripples in through the windows, a clear beautiful sound. [That] rings five times, each one like a silver wave rolling on to a dark beach” (250). Silver is the opposite of gold; whereas silver is real and precious, gold is fake and worthless.
Colors in the Keep Part IV
ReplyDeleteThe color gray symbolizes relapse and recovery. Evidence to support this is that there are “some gray hairs” in Davis’s shoebox (105); Danny finds “a trail maybe of five inches long of coarse gray powder like dust or ashes or crushed up bodies of moths” (110); the doctor is a “gray-bearded man” (132); Ray has his “gray hairs stand[ing] up a little on his head” (182); before Ray passes out in the hospital he describes a “gray mist coming in.. [and] feel[ing his] eyes roll back” (182); and after he wakes up, Ray describes “the grays coming on, a nice morphine gray [and he] welcomes it,” and then when Howard hysterical in the tunnel “his face look[s] gray” (217). Gray turns up when a person is in a period of either relapse or recovery. Gray is often used to describe hair, and with hair turning gray comes age and deterioration of health, but also an increase in mental health sometimes. Gray puts a positive and negative spin on everything. After Howe was in the cave, a primarily negative experience, he takes it as an opportunity to grow. Gray is very similar to silver, in that is puts a “gray-lining” to everything.
Pink’s meaning was the hardest to disclose. This is due to the fact that pink is mentioned the least amount of times, and it comes up in the most complicated manner. Pink is a symbol of losing innocence. Evidence to support this includes when Danny hallucinates that the baroness is young girl he recounts “the long stone tower going pink in the light” (83), and Danny remembers “the pink john with rose soaps” (220). Innocence is related to the baroness becoming younger, for with youth comes innocence, and Danny remembering something from his childhood (the beginning of his life) when he dies (the end of his life). Furthermore, “Pete’s [the officer Holly knew from her childhood] pink skin winc[es] up around his eyes” when interrogating Holly. During this encounter “Gabby [her youngest daughter] holds [Holly’s] hand” (236). Innocence is omnipresent in all encounters involving pink. Holly knew Pete from her innocent childhood and now he is interrogating her, whereas nine-year-old Gabby is losing her innocence when she must witness her mother being interrogated and accused of federal crime.