Drama in Red

“I am living in a red bubble made up of Louise’s hair. It’s the sunset time of year but it’s not the dropping disk of light that holds me in the shadows of the yard. It’s the colour I crave, floodings of you running down the edges of the sky on to the brown earth on to the grey stone.” (Winterson, 138)
Red contrasts with brown and grey. The red represents the ethereal, the sky, and the sun, enveloping the earthly and banal. The red could be the passion of romance that is far more intense than the mundane cares of daily life. In the broader context of the book, this could relate to the narrator’s tendency to prefer the more dramatic romance instead of the dullness of marriage. The narrator is held in the shadows by this colour, the red of Louise’s hair. The red bubble is the narrator’s world. The red completely encompasses the narrator’s existence. This may not be a bad thing, as bubbles can be comforting. There are repeated references to round and curved shapes. The use of the disk shape of the sun, spherical bubbles, and even the droplet shape of liquid running down edges are all round and smooth. This could also convey the narrator’s comfort in the thought of Louise. Spherical shapes have also been viewed as geometrically perfect and possibly divine. However, the narrator also refers to themselves as being held in the shadows. So, perhaps the narrator’s obsession with this divine red could ironically be the thing that keeps them separate from it, locked in the boring and earthly. In the broader context of the novel this could infer that by focusing on Louise’s existence, the narrator is ultimately separating themself from their supposedly idyllic romance with Louise’s. The narrator idealizes their relationship with Louise while also idolizes Louse. This ultimately is what drives them from Louise.