Light And Darkness In Natasha Trethewey's The Road

Light and darkness act as more than just singular representations of structure and moral ideals. They act as a foil and a balance between the ideas they each represent. When light and dark imagery is introduced into novels or poems, the contrast between the individually represented ideas is further emphasized by the presence of the opposite.

One image of light, the metaphorical “fire” mentioned throughout The Road, shows how the fire presents more than just a symbol of morality and hope in a godless world; rather, with the introduction of fire, the novel additionally emphasizes how darkness, and its all encompassing immorality, has consumed the rest of the world. Traditionally, darkness is most commonly seen as a representation of immorality and evil, when compared to its opposite, light; however, in The Dictionary of Symbols, it is described as more of a

representation of disorder and the unknown: “Hence, the pure concept of darkness is not, in symbolic tradition, identified with gloom—on the contrary, it corresponds to primigenial chaos.”

When the son has to carry the fire, his father passes away.

The son is always trying to keep his father in check morally. The frieze of heads on the fence. The cannibals. Freaking out over the limbs and blood. The gray sky the wreckage strewn streets.

In Natasha Trethewey’s poetry collection, Native Guard, the light and dark imagery represent a strong conflict of emotions experienced by Tretheway.

In the poem, “Myth,” the conflict between the denial and the acceptance of her mother’s death are expressed through the darkness of Trethewey’s sleep and the harsh light of her awakening. “Myth” is structured in such a way that a reader can take in an image of a person sleeping and waking; in this case, it is Tretheway in her sleeping and waking moments trying to recall back the presence of her now deceased mother. The poem begins with Tretheway

In the poem, …. (forgot the name right here.. at dusk?), the dusk before night is juxtaposed with the familiarity of a cat’s front porch. The light and dark imagery compare the tempting mystery of the wild unknown with the sense of security present within one’s

home.

In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, light is portrayed as a sense of blinding disillusionment that actually masks the true darkness of immorality. This case shows how light does not always have to be represented as a positive symbol. As Marlow, the narrator of the story, moves through the Congo with his steamboat crew, he realizes how their “mission” to colonize the Congo distracts both the Europeans and their colonists from the horrific acts of cruelty committed abroad. At the pinnacle of the novel, Marlow returns back to Europe from his time abroad, and he seeks to give the documents of now deceased, company leader, Kurtz back to his mistress. Marlow comes into conversation with her, but to his surprise, she is eager to know the details of his time in the jungle.