"1920": Red, White and Black

Paper Summary:

An analysis of the importance of color and setting in the story and how this impacts the entire work. Each color is examined for its significance and symbolism - red house, brown dress, colorless Virgin Mary etc. Each of these articles reflect an important motif in the story. The overall setting of the story, in the 1920's southern America make these colors even more significant - with racism abundant.

From the Paper:

"There are some stories which would not be themselves were they to have a different setting or another color scheme. What would the Fall of the House of Usher be, should we ask, if there were no house? Or A Rose for Emily without her decrepit mansion? In others, the setting and background matter so little that they might safely be disposed of, and transferred to another time and place altogether. Romeo and Juliet, for example, has safely survived being set in every time and place imaginable, and the story survives intact. The setting in Toni Morrison's 1920 is not so loud and forward with itself as are such atmospheric classics as the former, but neither is it set in such a disembodied place as the latter. While the setting at first seems shy to reveal itself, declared only in tiny snatches of color and briefly glanced over descriptions, it nonetheless controls the story in both a real and a metaphorical fashion. For this is a tale of places, and of going places, and of being changed by them. It is also a story of the times. Finally, and transcendently, it is a story about color: color as a racial issue, as an environmental fact, as a metaphorical vein of expression, and as a created of place."

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