Earlier this week my grandson's English assignment was to do a close reading of and make annotations on the classic Christmas short
story, “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry (William Sidney Porter).
I’ve
always liked the story because of its message of selfless giving, but it wasn’t
until my close reading of the story with my grandson that I noticed how O. Henry used color to paint
a picture with words and depict the mood of the story.
Here's an abbreviated version of the story, with the colors highlighted:
It’s Christmas Eve. Della has only one-dollar and
eighty-seven cents to buy a present for her husband, Jim.
While Jim is at work, she sits on a shabby couch looking out the window and
watches a gray cat walk along a gray fence in a gray backyard. Her feet rest on the worn red carpet.
When she combs her shiny brown
hair it falls like a cascade of brown water. In desperation, she decides what she
must do, and she turns white for just
a moment.
She puts on a brown
jacket and brown hat and rushes out to see Madame
Sofronie, who is large, white, and chilly.
Della sells her long brown
hair to Madame Safronie for twenty dollars then takes the money and shops on rosy wings.
She buys her husband a
platinum fob chain for twenty-one dollars to use with his most prized possession, his gold watch.
Meanwhile, on his way home from work, her husband Jim trades his gold watch for a set of lovely tortoise
shell combs to give to Della to complement her beautiful long brown hair.
That's quite a lot of colors.
While I use color in my writing, I try not to overuse it. Now, I wonder if I should use more.
After re-reading "The Gift of the Magi," I thought about another short story of O. Henry's that I read in high school: "The Ransom of Red Chief."
After the holidays I plan to re-read that story to see if O. Henry also uses a lot of color in that one. While I'm at it I'll take a gander at some other classic short stories by other famous writers and see how they use colors in their stories too.
What are your thoughts on using color in writing? Can you recommend any short stories where authors effectively use color?
