Colors

Black And White

• obsession with “purity” (i.e. perfection)

Black

• Melancholy, lifeless.

• formal, “black tie event”

Black represents a lack of color, the primordial void, emptiness. It can also mean sorrow or mourning, in the Christian tradition of wearing black to funerals. In this respect it can also symbolize death. Black is also linked to witchcraft (Black Magic), evil, and the unknown, as the predominant color worn by “evil witches” in colonial America. The stock market crash of 1929, dubbed “Black Tuesday” further links the color with loss, depression, and despair.

– Dictionary of Symbolism

White

White may be defined either as the absence of all color or the presence of all colors of the light spectrum, and can represent either innocence or the ultimate goal of purification. White is often the heavenly, while BLACK is the underworld. It is LIGHT, AIR, life, holiness, love, redemption.

– Dictionary of Symbolism

Grey, brown

• perceived flaws, “impurities”

Grey

Your ‘white’ frosting was the only one that remained unblemished. What precious little red remained was reserved for the ‘black,’ which ended up a dismal gray.

A harsh thing to think about a color that was, well, somewhat somber by nature.

• smoke that slips through your fingers

• the sky when it rains, melancholy, but also good for the soil (for life)

• between black and white, failing to be “purely” one of them

• a color that isn’t a color

• ashes (phoenix, death, wood ash is nourishment for soil. Baxter is a tree guy. He “dies” in “winter” in his isolation. He’s “reborn” in “spring” as he faces his fears and embraces human connection.)

• rocks: stubborn, resisting movement. But gets eroded by the persistence of aqueous forces

• fortress stone walls

Brown

• A darker shade of orange, the result of mixing in black in painting, Baxter’s eyes are something that he doesn’t get to “fashion into submission” to his monochrome style in his younger years. Like his spurned past represented by orange that will forever remain a part of him.

• A combination of primary colors. Yellow and red make orange, and mixing in blue results in brown. He feels he belongs nowhere but has also been part of everywhere he feels out of place from (orange Golden Grove and blue Sunset Bird). Both none of these and all of these at the same time.

• Woods and nature. Soil: death and life

brown study: A melancholy mood accompanied by deep thought; a moody daydream.

– Wiktionary

In a Christian context, it can mean spiritual death, or a segregation or death to the world because some groups of monks, friars, etc… wear brown…Often related to autumn, melancholy. As a Victorian symbol, shows lack of emotion. Sorrow, barrenness. Characteristics of those inclined to brown are calmness, passivity, conservative, dependable, practical and earthly.

– Dictionary of Symbolism

Orange & Blue

• Orange: Golden Grove, autumn. His past, his roots.

  …orange is most often linked to FLAME and FIRE, conveying their qualities. Orange can also mean luxury.

  – Dictionary of Symbolism

• Blue: California, the ocean. His present, his found home.

  Blue is the color most often associated with issues of the spirit and intellect. It is the color of SKY and HEAVEN, also having strong connections with nearly all forms of WATER; for this reason it can have feminine, cool, and reflective qualities. Its link to the sky also connotes eternity and immensity, time and space. Blue may be truth (no clouds to hide it) and transparency; it is linked to loyalty, fidelity, constancy, and chastity.

  – Dictionary of Symbolism

Purple

Purple has long been associated with royalty, originally because Tyrian purple dye—made from the secretions of sea snails—was extremely expensive in antiquity.

– Casey Dunn. “The Color of Royalty, Bestowed by Science and Snails”. The New York Times.

Purple is the color most often associated with rarity, royalty, luxury, ambition, magic, and mystery.

In Europe and America, purple is the color most associated with vanity, extravagance, and individualism. Among the seven deadly sins, it represents pride. It is a color which is used to attract attention.

Purple is the color most associated with ambiguity. Like other colors made by combining two primary colors, it is seen as uncertain and equivocal.

Since purple does not often occur in nature, it can sometimes appear exotic or artificial. For this reason, it tends to be quite a polarizing color. People tend to either really love purple or really hate it.

– Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur.

Visually, purple is one of the most difficult colors to discriminate. For this reason, it is often used in visual illusions such as the lilac chaser illusion.

– NASA

Purple prose is flowery and ornate writing that makes a piece of text impenetrable. It is characterised by long sentences, multi-syllabic words, excessive emotion, and a plethora of clichés. It’s typically melodramatic and often too poetic. It’s frowned upon because it breaks the flow of a story, slows the pace, detracts from the text, and leaves the reader perplexed or, even worse, bored.

Purple prose is most likely to creep into your writing if you’re trying too hard to impress your readers by emulating the style of your favourite author. Or perhaps you’re just being a little over-zealous with your word choices.

– Lucy Hope

“Purple prose” refers to pretentious or overly embellished writing. For example, a paragraph containing an excessive number of long and unusual words is called a purple passage.

“Born to the purple” means someone who is born into a life of wealth and privilege. It originally was used to describe the rulers of the Byzantine Empire.

– Wikipedia, “Purple”