Marissa Woo
Ms. Barwise
ENG 111
12 October 2016
The Red Effect
You scroll through the emoji list on your phone for the salsa dancing lady in a red dress. Why are you using this emoji? Do you like red dresses? Does the dancing lady symbolize how you see yourself? Does she represent how you’re feeling? Perhaps she represents how you wish to see yourself, or how you hope others perceive you. In her poem “What Do Women Want,” Kim Addonizio uses a red dress to symbolically communicate her desire for independence and confidence. The iconic color red also comes up as a symbol in The Scarlet Letter, and in the song “Lady in Red.” Though the color red appears in these three works of literary art, the symbolism of it in each is not entirely the same. …show more content…
“Red is a bold, dramatic, eye-catching color,” which allows us to identify why she specifically alludes to the color red (Avgguy13). The boldness of the red dress represents the confidence, and empowerment she plans to “wear… like bones [and] like skin” and even gives off a romantic feel. In the song “Lady in Red”, De Burgh alludes a red dress as an analogy for his wife and lasting marriage with her. He remembers catching a glimpse of a her and her red dress in a crowd when he first saw her and as he wrote the song, stressed about “how men so often cannot even remember what their wives were wearing when they first met” (Lady in Red). For this reason, it is safe to say that the color red is striking. This ties in with Addoizio’s desire to be noticed, “to walk like [she’s] the only woman on earth”. The color red itself in “Lady in Red” and “What do women want” ultimately gives both de Burgh and Addonizio a simple way to distinguish attention, and focus on a specific individual in a sea of
Ms. Barwise
ENG 111
12 October 2016
The Red Effect
You scroll through the emoji list on your phone for the salsa dancing lady in a red dress. Why are you using this emoji? Do you like red dresses? Does the dancing lady symbolize how you see yourself? Does she represent how you’re feeling? Perhaps she represents how you wish to see yourself, or how you hope others perceive you. In her poem “What Do Women Want,” Kim Addonizio uses a red dress to symbolically communicate her desire for independence and confidence. The iconic color red also comes up as a symbol in The Scarlet Letter, and in the song “Lady in Red.” Though the color red appears in these three works of literary art, the symbolism of it in each is not entirely the same. …show more content…
“Red is a bold, dramatic, eye-catching color,” which allows us to identify why she specifically alludes to the color red (Avgguy13). The boldness of the red dress represents the confidence, and empowerment she plans to “wear… like bones [and] like skin” and even gives off a romantic feel. In the song “Lady in Red”, De Burgh alludes a red dress as an analogy for his wife and lasting marriage with her. He remembers catching a glimpse of a her and her red dress in a crowd when he first saw her and as he wrote the song, stressed about “how men so often cannot even remember what their wives were wearing when they first met” (Lady in Red). For this reason, it is safe to say that the color red is striking. This ties in with Addoizio’s desire to be noticed, “to walk like [she’s] the only woman on earth”. The color red itself in “Lady in Red” and “What do women want” ultimately gives both de Burgh and Addonizio a simple way to distinguish attention, and focus on a specific individual in a sea of