How Does Ralph Ellison Use The Color Red

Throughout the novel, the author using several colors as a symbol. Ellison uses the colors red, black/white, gold, and blue to describe certain things. These colors play a huge role in the book, as they function to describe Ellison’s view of the North and the South. By using these colors, it showed that the South was full of colors that are connected with nature, while the North was expressed with grays and whites to show that it was cold and unwelcoming. Ellison made a great decision to use colors as a symbol in the book. Ellison uses the color red to symbolize blood, anger, and danger throughout the book. For example, describing Brother Jack's red hair, the “red-faced” men at the battle royal, the vet's red wheelchair, and even Santa Claus. Red functions as a symbol of evil in the book. It showed that the narrator feels uneasy and

Ellison also uses black and white as a symbol. White usually symbolizes purity, clean, and goodness, and black usually symbolizes evil, dirty, and dishonesty. However, Ellison does not use these colors to symbolize those things during the book, he actually does the complete opposite. He uses black to represent things as good and positive, and white to show things as bad and wrong. Black was used to describe the narrator’s black skin, Ras's "magnificent black horse," and the "black powerhouse". White was used with negative circumstances of coldness and death. Such as the snow, the white fog, the images of a mysterious "white death," the "cold, white rigid chair" at the factory hospital, the white paint made at the Liberty Paint Factory, and Brother Jack's "buttermilk white" glass eye. Gold was used to symbolize power, wealth, and success. Ellison referred