Color And Dehumanization Of Good Vs. Evil By John Steinbeck

Register to read the introduction… This shows how he sticks out from those around him. The colors also illuminate the differences between Cathy and Samuel. While Samuel is light and can get along with anyone, and is forgiving and lenient, Cathy is cold, sharp, calculating and only uses people to her benefit. Steinbeck shows this in this scene through the contrasting light and dark. The passage has a very mystical feel to it. Steinbeck paints a picture for the reader, saying the night was “so flooded with moonlight that the hills took on the quality of the white and dusty moon. The trees and earth were moon-dry, silent and airless and dead. The shadows were black without shading and the open places white without color.” (176) The excerpt creates an eerie scene even before Steinbeck mentions …show more content…
By going into such detail about the animals Steinbeck shows a comparison between Cathy and an animal, saying they are “almost invisible except when their yellow eyes [catch] light and [flash] for a second.” (176) This can also be seen as how Cathy seems delicate and quite until one looks at her eyes, and they see within them an emptiness that opposes the initial opinion of her. Cathy’s eyes remind Samuel of the eyes of a man he saw just before his hanging when Samuel was a small boy. The eyes had “no depth” and “were not like other eyes, not like the eyes of a man.” (178) It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul, so Cathy and this golden man both having empty, expressionless eyes is symbolizing their lack of souls and their uncaring