TV Tropes Monday: The Woman in White

 

Tweet of the Day: Writing The White Cliffs

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This trope is all about color, specifically the color white.

I am not going to write about that.

Yes, really. I am going to write about color. Color, specially when done in monochromatic way, i.e. a figure or object endowed with a single (usually primary) color catches the imagination. The lady above can mean anything from purity to death, or all of those themes at once. Color saturation catches the eye, mainly because our world is not monochromatic. Even within the same color, you have shades and fades. We don’t live in a black and white movie or picture. There is also the symbolism that a color brings, an entire cultural language wrapped into one tone. As in the Lady in White, the symbolism can be both complementary as well as conflicting.

The main problem with using any single color is that it can (and tends to be) abused. A writer might forgo giving a character any depth in lieu of this or related tropes. That is something that should be avoided, at least when comes to principal characters.

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