Red Balloon: The Evolution Of Symbols

James Hurst, the author of “The Scarlet Ibis”, uses death and birds as symbols to show how Doodle is fragile and could die at any moment. Red is a color that is often associated with evil and other times it represents love. Birds also represent death and fragility, but they also mean freedom and change. This shows how Doodle’s and Brother’s paradoxical relationship changes from Brother being evil and selfish, to him being an extremely helpful and caring brother.

Her dream when she was a kid was to fly in balloons for a living. Now, she could barely even afford a birthday balloon, let alone one big enough to fly in. All with having a child, and still trying to go to school. Her childhood dreams were crushed. Her and Bobby both have to give up what's dearest to them, and focus on the impending task at hand. So on Bobby's sixteenth birthday, Nia gives Bobby a balloon. The thing she wanted to do, but can't now. She is handing over everything she wanted to ever be to the man whom she must raise this child with. As a way of saying "I am yours, and you are mine. We are in this together

One of the symbols mentioned in the very beginning of the novel is the red balloon. On Bobby’s 16th birthday, Nia brought him a red balloon and she told him that she was pregnant. The balloon represents Nia giving away her innocence to Bobby and giving up on what on they had. It symbolizes that she can’t go through the pregnancy on her own. Also, red can symbolize love, hurt, and help. “I’ll never forget that look and how her voice shook when she said, Bobby, I’ve got something to tell you” (Johnson 6). This shows how Nia is scared to have a baby because she is only a teenager and she is scared to tell her family.

As you can see, the previously stated objects that Bobby encountered, prove that Bobby did come of age by the resolution of this novel. The gameboy because he thought about looking for it, but decided not to. Which symbolizes that later on he gets to a point where he sees no reason in trying to remain a child. The basketball, represents how Feather grew up with Bobby as her parent because he properly came of age by the end.

“I love coming of age stories that have struggle…” says actor Aaron Paul. The First Part Last is a novel that provides a prime example of someone’s struggle to come of age. In this book, Bobby and Nia have a baby named Feather. Bobby cares for Feather and Feather depends of Bobby. Bobby sometimes struggles with having to care for Feather because he feels like everything is changing, when in reality it is just him that is changing. Bobby and Feather live with Bobby’s mom, Mary, in New York. Bobby has changed since having Feather, but the question is, has he come of age? Throughout the book, Bobby changed and developed through challenges he faced. Bobby came of age throughout the course of the novel as symbolized by coffee, Just Frank and his corner, and the commercial jingles.

A quote that very well represents this is on page6 when the narrator said"then she handed me the balloon." This quote means that when Nia hands bobby the balloon to represent her giving him her virginity and her virginity represents her childhood being striped from her by bobby. And in response to Bobby taking away Nia's childhood Nia takes away his childhood because she expects Bobby to make sacrifices for Feather. And this makes Bobby upset because he can no longer be getting in trouble and he has to give up everything that he used to love to do in order to be able to be around Feather whenever she needed

Coming of age is something that bobby has to learn, and he doesn't know how to do it so he is trying the best he can. The symbols we are talking about represent something thing and this next symbols represents coming of age and man hood. Just Frank is a special guy every body thinks he is a nobody, but he is realer than any of us.

The greatest and first object/symbol is the basketball on page 23. “I lay my basketball down and it rolled out the door into the hall toward Mary’s room,” (pg 23) A basketball does not roll away if it just gets laid down. The basketball normally stays where it is at that moment. The basketball represents Bobby’s childhood because a basketball is greatly associated with children.

Remebering all those memories made Bobby cry. Crying symbolizes his childhood is still with him. Bach to the drawings, he draws a baby with no face. One can assume that this is Feather that Bobby is drawing. The colors he uses to paint these pictures stood out also.

Many of the symbols in the novel remind Robert of his troubled past. Some of the symbols in the book appeal to both the reader and Robert, exacerbating his struggles. After finishing his training, Robert boards a ship headed for the war zone. When tasked horse injured onboard the ship, he is clearly troubled; as he is unsuccessful in killing the horse the first time, “[a] chair [falls] over in his mind” (Findley 60). The horse is a symbol of Rowena, an innocent person who dies because of her disability. During training, he feels socially obliged to go to a brothel with his peers, and experiences shame associated with the death of Rowena. Instead of watching over her, Robert was “[m]aking love to his pillows” (Findley 16). As a result, he is very insecure about his sexuality and his private life in general. The scene where he is sitting in the bathtub after Rowena’s death is symbolic of Robert giving up his childhood, concomitant with his innocence. The tub represents the womb; his mother tells him a story of his childhood one last time before he joins the army, becoming an adult in some sense. Through symbolism, one can make the connection between Robert’s troubled past, the cruel world he lives in, and his experiences in the war.

Secondly, the characters in the novel, Bobby and Dr. Barney, teach that it is vital to hold on to hope because everyone has a future, regardless of the present and their past. Bobby shows things can change for the better with his discovery of his true home. Bobby announces at Six North that “This kid literally gave me the shirt off his back, the blue one right here and he didn’t know me from the Adam, and there ain’t no questions, without him, I wouldn’t have gotten this home. This new home” (Vizzini 317). Bobby lived in his car last year until a tow truck took away everything he had. Consequently, he loses hope and wants to kill himself. At Six North, Craig helps Bobby with a job interview. Through Craig’s act of kindness, Bobby learns that his true home is Six North where he is and welcomed and appreciated for who he is. Furthermore, Dr. Barney tells Craig about his personal experience with depression. He eventually reveals to Craig the secret to depression:

Bobby found out that Mr. Kellerman is a very lonely man, his mother just passed away that he has lived with his whole life, and his wife left him. Mr. Kellerman had never been the same after all of that happened to him. Bobby couldn’t hate this man anymore. They got closer throughout the book and they understood each other at the end. Bobby and Mr. Kellerman became good friends.

One of the most commonly used literary devices in Lamar Giles’ Endangered issymbolism. It is thrown all around in this book that follows the adventures of antisocial LaurenDaniels as she photographs her way through high school, taking pride in her anonymity as sheexposes the indecencies of many Portside High school students. On her website, Gray Scales,Lauren anonymously posts photos of her peers doing awful things. On page 14, shesays “I publish the pictures to Gray Scales, my anonymous photoblog”. Her website issymbolic because it symbolizes her personality mysterious and hidden. The title ‘GrayScales’ refers to the fact that she tends to sit in the shadows, which similarly, are gray.Lauren has received the nickname “panda”, as a result of

Throughout the play there are three main symbols; the bird, the bird cage and the jar of preserves. The bird symbolized Mrs. Wright and how she loved to sing because the bird was always singing. As the play progresses Mr. Wright grows annoyed with the bird and kills it. The canary’s death represented how Mrs. Wright is dead inside from her neglectful marriage. The bird’s cage symbolized the cage of a marriage Mrs. Wright was in. She felt trapped by her husband’s emotional abuse. When the bird cage broke, it represented the death of Mr. Wright and the freedom that Mrs. Wright felt after breaking free from her long, painful marriage. The last jar of cherry preserves symbolized how Mrs. Wright was still standing. After a failed marriage and losing her bird, which was the one thing she cared most about, Mrs. Wright managed

When he enters his dad’s business he tells him exactly what had transpired at the candy store. Robert’s enraged father corrects the situation with the store owner in a rather harsh manner, saying many hurtful things to the clerk. The day’s events seem to leave a lasting impression on the youth. “He only knew that something had been gained forever-something lost.” (2007)