Charlotte Barr and the Color of God

705 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Religion in contemporary society

Charlotte Barr and the Color of God

In many of her poems, the contemporary poet Charlotte Barr provides insight into the relationship between God and man. "A Complaint to Her Lord in Her Loneliness," "Black and White," and "Color" all use the colors black, white, and red to explore the relationship between their speakers and God. The poems' speakers see these colors as indicators of their love for God. Through each of the poems, the use of color allows each speaker to come to a better understanding of her relationship with God. From a broader view, many of the things the speakers learn can be applied to the relationship between God and the ordinary man.

In "A Complaint to Her Lord in Her Loneliness," the speaker uses red and white to embody passion and purity. The two extremes are never reconciled, and, by the end of the poem, juxtaposed in their meanings. As the poem begins, the speaker prays to God, saying, "There is a rosebud on your altar / Which waits unopened. / Who knows if it is red or white?" (ll. 1-3) Here, the speaker's sexual side, c...

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Kimberly Springer's Skin Deep Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body In American Culture

    1680 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Kimberly Springer’s anthology, Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture, she has different articles in the book that are written by a variety of women. The articles in the book break down and discuss areas of history and time-periods that shaped the representation and current understanding of the black female body. Many ideals of how society preserves the black female body to be is based on historical context that the authors in Springers book further explain. The two articles that I am going to focus on are Gender, Race and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of “Hottentot” Women in Europe 1815-17 and Mastering the Female Pelvis: Race and the Tools of Reproduction.

    Read More

  • The Color Of Christ By Edward Blum

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Color of Christ describes an interesting, yet complicated, relationship between religion and race. The image of Christ plays an important role in the formation of different religions. The color of Christ has not always been predominately portrayed as white. The Puritans did not believe in religious imagery, thus destroying any images of Christ. Jesus was not solely depicted as white until the mid-nineteenth century. Before then, Jesus came from Jewish roots and had brown eyes. The formation of this blond hair, blue eyed, white Jesus came about as the nation itself began to change as Catholics and Jewish immigrants came into the United States and whites began to grow in power. Before white Jesus emerged, people in different cultures depicted Jesus as their own. During the civil rights movement, some black people portrayed Jesus as a black African with an afro comparing the struggles of Jesus with the struggle of their people in the south during the civil rights movement in order to make their Jesus more relatable to suit their own religious obligations and constitutional objective...

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jay Gatsby lives in an enormous, extravagant mansion resembling a castle that a wealthy brewer had constructed ten years prior to the events of the novel. Gatsby’s house is located in the West Egg area of Long Island, where the population is made up of mostly newly wealthy people. Gatsby is living the so-called “American Dream” after spending a period of his life striking it rich by smuggling grain alcohol as a bootlegger. The effects of Gatsby’s riches on himself and people around him are comparable to how alcohol causes self-destructive behavior and bad judgment in people when ingested in large amounts. Gatsby strived to gain his wealth in order to become high-class enough to be with Daisy, Tom’s wife who fell...

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Great Gatsby should be considered as one of America’s greatest novels because it provides a wealth of information while following an interesting story line. Most novels which contain information about America’s past tell of stories which are boring and hard to read. The Great Gatsby, set in a time period with interesting laws and interesting political happenings, appeals to most readers who did not live through that time period as millionaires. The novel allows the reader to look at the twenties through a different perspective and learn about the economy and prohibitions which affected individuals.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many of the characters in Fitzgerald’s novel are portrayed as shallow and materialistic, which accurately reflects the mindset of the 1920’s. However, because Fitzgerald chooses to reveal these characters so thoroughly and frequently suggests his intentions of critic...

    Read More

  • Innocurity And Compurity In Queen Annes Lace

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    Here, Verdier is pointing out that when white represents both innocence and desire, it proves that passion and innocence rely on each other, as he says that purity is essential to the love shown in the poem. At the end, the speaker mentions whiteness yet again, saying, “a pious wish to whiteness gone over-/or nothing” (Williams 20-21). This wish to whiteness was a wish of the woman’s, and wish that has been satisfied, or “gone over.” This shows that the woman desired the man’s passion all along; it was the key to her ultimate fulfillment. Her wish was the whiteness, “or nothing” (Williams 21) at all.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of the book, Gatsby is hardly introduced, but the seldom introductions explain it all. Nick, a main character and the narrator throughout the book sets the scene when he first moves to West Egg. Nick buys a small house directly next to two large houses, one of which is the infamous Gatsby. One day nick was walking home and noticed a man on a dock. Nick describes the scene, “I didn’t call to [Gatsby], for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, a minute and far way, that might have been the end of a dock” (20-21). From previous knowledge, the reader can infer that this foreshadow signifies something of greater meaning. Gatsby was reaching out towards the green light, which was actually across the bay, on the end of Daisy and Tom’s dock. There is obviously something that is separating Gatsby from reaching the green light, the water. The water represents a life struggle though,...

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    In most literature assigned to young adults for academic reading, there exists major ideas students are taught to dissect and take away from their reading. In reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the major moral interpretations of the tale are widely known and accepted by teens due to the variety of shared interests between the characters and their young readers. Fitzgerald encompasses several concepts from infidelity, to gender roles, to economic class, to the importance of hope; all of which he covers with exuberance. In the case of economic class, Fitzgerald creates a social structure that parallels reality whilst placing emphasis on the more desirable attributes of high class life, allowing the text to remain prevalent and relatable throughout time and cultural shifts. The similarities between reality and the world of Gatsby preserve its story and the principles that follow and the romanticism keeps young readers engaged, lending the text the timelessness necessary to grant academic attention.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, the reader is able to interpret the major socio-economic classes represented in Marxist Theory. Fitzgerald connects character actions and class status to a Marxist representation of the socio-economic structure of 1920’s American society.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of The Colorless Age In Katherine Mansfield's 'Miss Brill'

    1515 Words  | 4 Pages

    When Miss Brill is sitting in the park observing passers-by, she notes “two young girls in red” who were met by “two young soldiers in blue … and they laughed and paired and went off arm-in-arm” (Mansfield 176). And later Miss Brill sees “a beautiful woman [come] along and [drop] her bunch of violets” (Mansfield 177). Miss Brill admires the beauty of these young people with their bright and vivid colors. To her the vivid colors represent life, passion, beauty, and happiness, all fulfilling elements that she believes she lacks. Later when she is studying herself she realizes that now in her older age “her hair, her face, even her eyes, [were] the same color as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw” (Mansfield 177). All the colors that she notices in herself are dim and muted, communicating to the audience that Miss Brill feels her life much reduced from the brilliant excitement and color that it had once been. When observing the young people she sees red, which is commonly symbolizes passion and love; blue, which is frequently associated with innocence, youth, order, and serenity; and purple, which conveys richness, vibrancy, and royalty. In contrast the only colors Miss Brill mentions when critiquing herself are a muted brown and a yellowish color. The brown represents the confusion that is

    Read More

  • Comparison of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Walker's Color Purple

    2372 Words  | 5 Pages

    Of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Alice Walker says "it speaks to me as no novel, past or present, has ever done."  Though 45 years separate Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Color Purple, the two novels embody many similar concerns and methods. Hurston and Walker write of the experience of uneducated rural southern black women. They find a wisdom that can transform our communal relations and our spiritual lives. As Celie in The Color Purple says, referring to God: "If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you."

    Read More

  • Analysis Of A Rose By Emily Rose

    1331 Words  | 3 Pages

    The rose, the rose-color bridal chambers of Miss Emily, signify the little details that come full circle. In that moment, there comes a consciousness that death trumps all that. It is a reality that cannot be avoided. What once was a bridal chamber has now become that of death and decay, still with the same hint of rose-colored innocence it once had all over its

    Read More

  • Analysis: Edward Taylor's Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children, and Upon A Wasp Chilled With Cold

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edward Taylor’s Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold are similar in their approach with the illustration of how beautiful and magnificent God’s creations are to humankind. However, each poem presents tragic misfortune, such as the death of his own children in Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children and the cold, enigmatic nature of human soul in Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold. Taylor’s poems create an element of how cruel reality can be, as well as manifest an errant correlation between earthly life and spiritual salvation, which is how you react to the problems you face on earth determines the salvation that God has in store for you.

    Read More

  • Political Critique of Race Relations in Alice Walker's Color Purple

    2167 Words  | 5 Pages

    work for her as a maid, Sophia is brutally beaten by the mayor and six

    Read More

  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker

    1054 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...d. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God.” (Walker 285) stating that she has now seen God from her own perspective and not what others portray God to be. Celie finds herself becoming an independent woman. She was always limited by her emotional feelings and the violence that went on around her, and she thought of herself as almost worthless. Celie used her new vision of God to give her a sort of “new life” and become the woman she sees herself to be. The letters to God helped her through her journey to live a happy life with her sister. Alice Walker gives the reader a chance to feel what an African American female felt during that time. This book gives all women the inspiration and hope that through communication, friendship, and belief in God life’s many obstacles can be overcome and peace and happiness are possible.

    Read More

More about Charlotte Barr and the Color of God

Open Document