Unseen Commentary
The passage begins with ‘a Ceremony’, in which the narrator is involved. The event arouses many unanswered questions in readers’ minds: Why does she have to do this? What is the purpose of the cold and ‘white’ atmosphere described? The narrator creates symbolism by portraying images throughout the passage. This also further conveys the moods and feelings of the narrator. The language and style reveals in this passage help to reveal how it allows her to emotionally escape from the situation she clearly cannot physically escape from, giving us a clearer picture of how devastating her situation is.
Throughout the passage the writer has used the color ‘white’ as her descriptions to images in order to enhance how different objects are symbolized. ‘the large white canopy of Serena Joy’s outsized colonial size colonial-style four-poster bed, suspended like a sagging cloud above us, a cloud sprigged with tiny drops of silver rain, which if you looked at them closely would turn out to be four-petalled flowers.’ The referral to the ‘sagging clouds’ is a portrayal of the narrator’s depressing and grim feelings. The description ‘a cloud sprigged with drops of silver rain’ further symbolizes the narrator’s sad feelings, as the rain is a symbol of tears. Lastly, I believe the use of the color white to describe the ‘large white canopy’ and the ‘carpet’ is both used to create a cold and hardened atmosphere where the narrator is in, which again conveys to readers the despair she is going through.
