Chapter 13: House Warming
"Ah, many a tale their color told!" (para 2)
This stood out to me while I was reading this chapter because a lot of authors use color in their stories but very few actually say something about their coloring meaning anything. In this paragraph, it said something about the coloring twice. One was the one I quoted referring to the leaves changing in fall. The second "distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious coloring" referring to the new colors that the leaves brought. It says that everyday the leaves bring a new picture with more color. This is a very strong statement and site to see. The leaves are magical and they bring new colors and excitement every day. They change all the time and never look the same as they did the previous day.
Then I wondered, why did Thoreau pick scarlet to represent the leaves? Usually someone would just say the leaves turned red. A simple color like red. So i looked into what scarlet meant. It is a warm color. Similar in meaning to red. It could mean power. Scarlet can also have a physical effect. So there is a lot that goes a long with the color scarlet. The more I thought about this, I realized that scarlet is also the color reddish orange so it might not have any significant meaning. He might have just used the color scarlet because the leaves were change from orange to red so they were scarlet.
"Ah, many a tale their color told!" (para 2)
This stood out to me while I was reading this chapter because a lot of authors use color in their stories but very few actually say something about their coloring meaning anything. In this paragraph, it said something about the coloring twice. One was the one I quoted referring to the leaves changing in fall. The second "distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious coloring" referring to the new colors that the leaves brought. It says that everyday the leaves bring a new picture with more color. This is a very strong statement and site to see. The leaves are magical and they bring new colors and excitement every day. They change all the time and never look the same as they did the previous day.
Then I wondered, why did Thoreau pick scarlet to represent the leaves? Usually someone would just say the leaves turned red. A simple color like red. So i looked into what scarlet meant. It is a warm color. Similar in meaning to red. It could mean power. Scarlet can also have a physical effect. So there is a lot that goes a long with the color scarlet. The more I thought about this, I realized that scarlet is also the color reddish orange so it might not have any significant meaning. He might have just used the color scarlet because the leaves were change from orange to red so they were scarlet.
Scarlet sounds so much more... exotic, don't you think? Red justs sounds so bland. That could be why he decided to use it.
Yes that's a very good point. Thanks!!