Student Question
What's the difference between light and color in Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember?
Quick answer:
In "The City of Ember," light is depicted as a form of energy composed of wavelengths, while color is the perception of these wavelengths when reflected or emitted from matter. The novel uses light and color as motifs to symbolize enlightenment and hope. The dark, colorless city contrasts with the vibrant world revealed to the protagonists, Lina and Doon, when they escape Ember, highlighting their journey towards knowledge and a brighter future.
Light is a form of energy that takes the shape of magnetic or electrical waves, and these waves are reflected off of or emitted from matter (Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon). According to Sir Isaac Newton's theory of light and color, since these waves of light have different frequencies and wavelengths, once reflected off of or emitted from matter, these waves appear as colors. Newton developed the theory because he saw that when light passed through a prism, light broke up into seven different colors of different wavelengths: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Newton further saw that all colors were really a combination of these seven different colors and, therefore, a combination of different light wavelengths ("Isaac Newton: 1642 - 1727," Wichita State University). There are different theories that work together to explain how we see color. According to the Young-Helmholtz...
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theory, also called the trichromatic theory,
we are able to see color because the retinas of our eyes are formed with three
types of cones that are sensitive to the wavelengths of the three colors; red,
green and blue ("Theories
of Color Vision," University of Calgary). Therefore, the difference between
light and color is that light is energy made up of
wavelengths, whereas colors are the various wavelengths our
eyes are sensitive to and can see once the light is reflected from or emitted
from matter. Light and color are dominant recurring motifs in
Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember. As the characters achieve
enlightenment by making their way out of Ember, the more they witness brighter
light and more color.
The recurring motif of light is first developed when the
narrator explains that Ember is surrounded in darkness, and the only light the
citizens of Ember have is electric. As the story develops, the reader learns
that the citizens are running out of light bulbs, and their power generator is
beginning to fail.
The motif of color is developed throughout as the narrator
describes various colors such as the red of Lina's messenger jacket. But what
is most interesting is the description that Ember's most dominant colors are
black and gray: "gray buildings, gray streets, black sky" (Ch. 5). Lina rebels
against her drab, colorless surroundings by buying very expensive, black market
colored pencils, a moment that further develops the recurring color
motif.
The recurring color motif reaches its greatest intensity the
moment Doon and Lina see the brightest colors they have ever seen in their
lives when they experience the first sunrise after having emerged from Ember.
Not knowing what the sun is, they think of it as a light. And, they note that
as the light rises higher into the sky, "The color seeped out of the sky and
washed over the land ... every shade of green sprang to life around them" (Ch.
19).
References