Allie overwhelmed by the symbolic significance of color

I’ve had some great days in Cape Town so far, but last Saturday may have topped them all. It started off with the annual Cape Town Pride Parade. I honestly didn’t know what it was going to be like; we had just heard there was a gay pride parade downtown, so we figured we’d check it out. Suddenly, we were sucked into the middle of what was essentially a giant dance party. There was music blasting from the floats, and everyone around us was just having a great time as they celebrated the diversity and acceptance of Cape Town. From there we went to the Holi ONE Festival of Color, a large concert based on the traditional Indian Holi festival. It was set up in St. George’s Parade, right in the middle of the city, and on the stroke of each hour the crowd would throw bags of colored powder into the air. By the time we left we were exhausted, exhilarated, and coated in the neon powder. It was an incredible day, and one that I’m sure I’ll remember for a long time.

I guess the habits of an English Major die hard, because over the next few days I kept thinking that if I were to analyze these events in a novel, I would be overwhelmed by the symbolic significance of color. First, there was the gay pride parade. Not only was there a lot of color (and glitter) all around, but the symbol of the gay rights movement is the rainbow flag. Then, there was the Holi Festival, a celebration that featured periodic explosions of neon green, blue, pink, yellow and orange powder. Furthermore, all of this was happening under in South Africa- “the rainbow nation”.  And beyond this, there’s the historical significance of color in terms of race. The term “coloured” has traditionally been associated with the divisions instituted by apartheid, but at one point in the concert the singer shouted out to the crowd, “Tonight, we are all coloured!” It was as if they were repossessing this idea that had been used to divide, and flipping its meaning to one of unity.  And that’s what all these uses of color signified: they were all examples of different elements coming together into a single expression of celebration.

I know that some of you might think I’m reading too far into this, and you may be right. That’s probably the most common complaint against English as a subject: overemphasis of metaphor and symbolism. It’s a legitimate point, too; sometimes the color of a character’s house doesn’t reveal anything about their psyche, but just that the author liked that color. Still, I believe that symbols actually hold some measure of significance. One of my favorite authors, John Green, frequently talks about how much symbols matter in literature and in life. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with John Green, he’s a bestselling young-adult novelist, an Internet/YouTube personality and generally awesome human being.) Anyways, his views are pretty much summed up in this statement: “You cannot separate metaphor from reality. Metaphor is part of reality. Metaphor is an exploration of the nature of reality.” So while all these instances of color I noticed on Saturday may have been coincidence, they took on significance because myself and other people interpreted them as having such. They are a way for the people of the parade, the festival and South Africa as a whole to express their acceptance of diversity and pure, overwhelming joy.