Blog #4

Symbolism is a key feature in literature and the short story "The Tenth of January" utilizes this element.  Some symbols are very subtle and maybe unrecognizable but upon further insight we can find a deeper meaning.  A reoccurring symbol presented throughout the story was the color red. The color red can be symbolized as many different things such as love, desire and envy. The author used the color red to symbolize the protagonists angst against society. "Asenath always wore a cape: there was one of crimson flannel, with a hood, that she had meant to wear to-night; she had thought about it coming home from the mill; and she was apt to wear it on Saturdays and Sundays; Dick had more time at home. Going up stairs to-night, she had thrown it away into a drawer, and shit the drawer with a snap; then opened it softly, and cried a little; but she had not taken it out." I believe "Sene" would wear this cloak to mask her deformity and it showed that she had envy for the prettier girls in town that teased her. "She shrank instinctively at the first sight of herself; and opened the drawer where the crimson cape was folded, but shut it resolutely." She can't bear to even look at herself and the cape represented her loathsomeness for herself. The color red also appears in the factory where Sene meets her ultimate fate. "To lie here and watch the hideous redness crawling after her, springing at her!- it had seemed greater than reason could bear, at first." The fire in the factory was her escape from the cruel world she lived in. She was in agony and the color red flashed before her giving her a sense of hope in her final moments.