VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, [8], 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 20:50:15 10/21/08 Tue
Author: SS
Subject: ENG487ESSAY1

Noah Eaton
October 18, 2008
English 487

The Blending of Color in “Silver Water”


The father of Abstract Expressionism painting, Hans Hoffman, once famously declared in his treatise of sorts titled “Search for the Real“: “It is not the form that dictates the color, but the color that brings out the form.”
Bloom appears to have an instinctual grasp of this notion throughout “Silver Water”, where color pervades and gauzes the text so that we are more aesthetically apt to relate to the emotions and senses of her characters.
The title, and the names of the story’s two most prominent characters, obviously, provide the first two clues to the reader, where Violet, whose sister suffers from mental illness and is much depicted as some “mountain of Thorazined fat, swaying down the halls in nylon maternity tops and sweatpants.” (72) recalls a positive memory of her that others haven’t seen, reminiscing that her “sister’s voice was like mountain water in a silver pitcher; the clear blue beauty of it cools you and lifts you up beyond your heat, beyond your body.” (72)
The memory she is referring to is one where Rose belts out a song in impromptu just after she and Violet saw La Traviata when they were teenagers, which she claims made passing operagoers cheer like hell. This, coupled with her declaration of Rose as her “beautiful blond defender” and noting of her pale blue sweater and white jeans that reinforce the weight of her simile, suggests that Bloom’s ultimate aim is to have us empathize with Violet’s struggling. Much maligned sister, and perceive the inner-beauty of even the most eccentric individual.
However, Bloom also appears to understand that, if you are to successfully draw on empathy, you must be able to illustrate the underlying tension that is at odds with empathy. Thus, Bloom also deploys color to help the reader identify the contrasts in personalities, beginning most notably with the depiction of the choir a the A.M.E. Zion Church during a period of Rose‘s life where she sought donations for a halfway house:

“Amidst a sea of beige, umber, cinnamon, and espresso faces, there was Rose, bigger, blonder, and pinker than any white women could be. And Rose and the choir’s contralto, Addie Robicheaux, laid out their gold and silver voices and wove them together in strands as fine as silk, as strong as steel. And we wept as Rose and Addie, in their billowing garnet robes, swayed together clasping hands until the last perfect note floated up to God, and then they smiled down at us.” (76)


A plethora of colors are present here, and while Bloom appears to approach her stories in shades of gray rather than in black and white, the reader can nonetheless perceive Rose and Addie’s personalities being closer to those that actually lift you up beyond your body, perhaps because their voices seem more empathetic, more believable.
It is not to say color permeates Rose’s adversities as well. After having banged her head repeatedly on the kitchen floor after refusing to take off her wet clothes from being down at the lake, and healing there afterward, when the family meets again at the dinner table Rose begins mouthing what appears to be a dissimulated version of “Yes It Is” by the Beatles, with the color red explicitly mentioned, while deciding to go to bed.
There is no immediate indicator to why red would dominate this particular scene, but it is worth noting that, shortly after Violet returns upstairs to find that Rose isn’t in her room, and then wanders outside finding her body lying on the ground beside the lake

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.