Narrative Element or Self-expressive Element: Two Roles of Colors in Araby and Kew Garden

Abstract

This paper aims to compare the different applications of colors in narrative in two modern short stories, James Joyce’s Araby and Virginia Woolf’s Kew Garden. It has been found that two different roles of colors are presented—colors function as narrative elements and self-expressive elements. Colors and lights in Araby are subjected to narration while colors and lights in Kew Garden stand out of events and are independent from narration. It seems that Joyce employs colors and lights as symbols to implicate what he tried to express, while Woolf frees colors and lights by treating them as subjectivity. The comparison between the usages of colors in those two short stories has been conducted through two parts, colors to feel vs. colors to view, and colors with symbolic meaning and colors with natural/ordinary meaning.