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What is Dark and Light Imagery?

Justification:

The gods are portrayed as light or a saving, redeeming grace, while suffering is portrayed as darkness.

When the chorus delivers the long ode asking the gods for help, they also refer to the gods as saving light.

They call on the three gods, Zeus, Artemis and Phoebus for protection from their current troubles, as we see in their lines, “I call: my threefold protection from death, shine on me”. We see that the recurring motif of light helps to portray protection and salvation as light, and death, destruction, and agony as darkness.

Background:

Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march through Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. He gave a speech about civil rights that is remarked as one of the best known in American history. Perhaps the reason this speech is so memorable is because of King’s powerful imagery and word choice that matched the strength of his message.

Justification:

Throughout his speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. uses light and dark imagery to symbolize confidence and optimism in a world of injustice and prejudice for African-Americans.

“This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”

“Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”

Works Cited

1. H., Tamara K. "What Are Some Examples of Sight and Blindness/ Light and Darkness in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?" Enotes.com. Enotes.com, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2017. <https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-some-examples-sight-blindness-light-darkness-371035>.

2. “A Metaphorical Alanlysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech.” digitalcommons. Calpoly, n.d. Web Jun. 2010.

Act 4 and 5:

Act 3:

In act 3, Dark Imagery was used.

There is limited imagery in act four and the last. In act 4, the dark imagery of faking her death by drinking the potion to avoid marrying Paris, and this decision led to the death of Romeo and Juliet. In Scene Five, both dark and light imagery connects the audience to the time of day it is.

Shakespeare's use of Dark and Light Imagery In "Romeo and Juliet"

The use of the dark imagery connects the audience to think of night as the time of romance and freedom. It is the only time they can be together.

A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.’

(Act 5. Scene 3. Line 306)

‘Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,

Take him and cut him out into little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.’

(Act 3. Scene 2. Lines 23-6

Juliet is saying that when she dies, turn Romeo into stars and form a constellation in his image. That his face will make the heavens so beautiful, the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.

Romeo is transformed into shimmering immortality and becomes the very definition of light, outshining the sun itself.

'More light and light, more dark and dark our woes'

(Act 3. Scene 5. Line 36).

With Romeo being forced to leave for exile in the morning, and Juliet not wanting him to leave her room, they both try to pretend that it is still night, and that the light is actually darkness.

In the last speech of the play, after Romeo and Juliet’s death is discovered, Prince Escalus says that the morning sky is dark, fitting the mood of occasion.

Introduction

Throughout William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, light and dark imagery is one of the most used themes used in this play.

- The use of dark and light imagery is used to demonstrate the contrast between positive and negative emotions or thoughts of characters. Romeo and Juliet use light and dark imagery to provide a more intense attraction between the two lovers.

Dark and light imagery is a motif in a work of literature and can be used to contrast good and bad, love and hate, or life and death. In other instances, the literary device is used to accentuate one of the two concepts.

Importance of Light and Dark Imagery

The use of dark and light imagery plays an important role in creating the mode, symbolizing love, and foreshadowing action and fate. It also helped describe characters as well as sequencing events.

Act 1:

In Act 1, light imagery was used by Romeo to describe the beauty of Juliet.

Upon first sight of her, Romeo exclaims that she teaches "the torches to burn bright" (1.5.43)

Juliet's light shows best against the darkness; she "hangs upon the cheek of night / As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear" (1.5.44-45)

Explanation: She shines in the night like an earring an ear of an Ethiopian.

Explanation: Her beauty is so bright that she teaches something already bright, to burn brighter

Sophocles’s Oedipus

Act 2

Speech: I Have A Dream

Light imagery was used to show Romeo's professing love for Juliet.

Other Literary Works that use Dark and Light Imagery

Golding’s Lord of the Flies

‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon...’

(Act 2. Scene 2)

Juliet is metaphorically described as the sun, is seen as banishing the ‘envious moon’ and transforming the night into day. In other words, transforming darkness into light.

Piggy’s glasses, a symbol of logic and good sense, are also symbols of light.

Simon is compared to Jesus - and light would be symbolic of his purity and his insightful nature.

There is also an element of darkness. Darkness is often unexplored and so there is a wild side, an unexplored and unknown, even hostile side. In the hostile environment, Ralph finds himself being hunted by Jack.

Lord of the Flies centers around the boys’ plunge into evil. Evil is represented by darkness itself. The longer the boys stay on the island, the more pervasive the ‘darkness’ is.

Jack and his group are drawn to the dark, interior of the island whereas the more “civilized” group of boys huddle together on the beach for security.

Fire represents hope and gives light in the dark. Fire, although it has many destructive elements, also provides warmth and so is associated with safety.

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