Literary Analysis - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages The fact that everything is red is something Carson brings and uses. Everything about Geryon is red, as well as everything in Autobiography of Red. What does red mean? Is the book a personal history of the color red as composed by Anne Carson? Not likely. Red is a striking color, more striking than dark, or chestnut, or blue. Red is striking and peculiar and, accordingly, red is the ideal illustration for difference, which Carson uses throughout Autobiography of Red to convey Geryons part as an outsider, a test to the hetero-narrative.
Geryon had, what most would say, a bad youth and, likely, a different one from his peers. His mother was well intentioned, however pointless, while his father was mostly absent. Geryons older sibling sexually abused him. Geryon was red even in his adolescence, as was every little thing about him, from the "red silk chalk" utilized by his instructors to the "dull pink air" that encompassed his home (Carson 26, 36). In Geryons personal history, he set down the facts believed about himself, above all else of which is that "Geryon was a monster whose every little thing about him was red" (Carson 37). Geryon was such a different individual, to the point that he would not take the conventional route to his classroom at school. He would stroll to the most distant end of the building and "stand still until somebody inside noticed and turned out to show him the way. He didnt move neither did he knock on the glass but little, red, and upright he held up” (Carson 25). When he was far from his peers, he stood and waited to be included in their games or activities. He was commonly known as the different one, the other.
Having a contemporary hero who is actually red is, to a degree, a different thing from what people are used to. Yet, what difference is using red, as an analogy, if yellow or orange would work and are additionally striking shades? Geryon must be red or the analogy, primarily, ...Download file to see next pages Read More