Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

"Somethin purple, maybe a little red in it too... no purple. Plenty red but she say, Naw he won't pay for red. Too happy lookin. We go choice of brown, maroon, or navy blue." pgs 21-22
Colors serve as a motif in The Color Purple, a fitting reocurrence for a novel with a title named for a color! At the store with Kate, Celie declares what color dress she would like; however, the colors of purple and red signify too much happiness. At this point in the book, the dull colors of navy and brown symbolize the despair and gloom constantly enveloping Celie.

"I walk around the whole day with the annoucement burning a hole in my pocket. It pink." Pg. 25, last paragraph
Something of such simplicity etches excitement into Celie's distressed life. It is liberating for her to bear Shug Avery's flyer on her person, and she makes a point to declare its color!

"Shug Avery donate her old yellow dress for scrap, and I work in a piece every chance I get... I want it for myself, just for the little yellow pieces, look like stars, but not." pg. 59 para. 1
A little bit of brightness is sewn into Celie's life as her relationship with Shug Avery blossoms slowly. Shug gives an old yellow dress for Sofia and Celie to incorporate into the quilt. Here, Shug unknowingly brightens Celie's world, shown in the stitching of the quilt.

As the story progresses and Celie meets people who brighten her life, the colors discussed and noticed also grow brighter. I wonder if the next half brings brighter or darker colors to Celie's life!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHCYgO9zh8

A Star-Shaped Hole

First off, O'Brien starts the chapter "The Man I Killed" with a long sentence, depicting a gruesome image of a dead man. The syntax can be connected to The Sun Also Rises when Hemingway used long sentences to show guilt of Jake Barnes; O'Brien may have been feeling similar guilt.

The unwavering image of the dead man's "one eye shut, the other a star shaped hole" reoccurs during several instances throughout the rest of the book (pages 118, 120, 124 127). The image is used as a motif, as a constant reminder of the image O'Brien can't shake of the dead Vietnamese man. Another motif O'Brien uses is the colors red and yellow. He uses it when describing on page 104 "the panes dancing in bright reds and yellows..." where Mary Anne was hiding out with the Greenies. And then again on page 120: "The star-shaped hole was red and yellow." These colors seem to come up when crazy things are happening in the book: Mary Anne changed to the point of no return, O'Brien killed a man.