Closed Reading of “primary Colors” by Larry D. Thomas

Closed Reading of “Primary Colors” by Larry D. Thomas

“Primary Colors” by Larry D. Thomas is an open form poem. The title of the poem references the four main colors of the color wheel, the primary colors: red, blue, yellow, and green.  The poem’s speaker Larry Thomas reports his Mom's mental state of depression when enduring an illness. His tonality suggests that he is hopeful and amazed at the actions of his daughter. Thomas uses imagery and symbolism to express the theme that a positive attitude can help give you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you.

         The speaker begins the poem by giving the reader an understanding of the mother’s condition “For several months Mom’s clinical depression had kept her indoors” (lines 1-3). The use of imagery allows the reader to see that the mom has been secluded from others for several months. “She killed time drifting through her universe” (lines 4-5). The Mom is depressed and despondent "killing" her time of life left to live and seems to be waiting for death.

The second stanza mentions how the mother had to be medicated because of her depression. The speaker talks about how his mother kept buttoning her pale blue housecoat. “she kept buttoning below her knees for prudence” (line 9-10). Although the mother is not in her right taste of mind she made sure that she maintained her lady- like manners.  The use of blue also implies depression and the speaker is suggesting that the mother is wearing her depression like a housecoat.

In the third stanza, there is a sudden shift in the poem when it discusses a blue norther, which is a dramatic shift in the weather (a wind and cold front Phenom) that turns the sky a deep, darkish blue and changes the temperature--all in a matter of minutes. The sudden change in the weather symbolizes the change in the mother’s mood. “Rubbing the sky to raw cobalt” (line 14-15).  Just as the blue northern rubbed the sky raw, the mother is also rubbed raw of the person that she once was because her depression has completely taken over.

That is when the innocence of the sick woman's granddaughter (and speaker's daughter), in stanza four, marks a mood change in the poem from despair and gloom to hope. “My daughter of three led her by her pinkie to the backyard” (lines 16-18).  The hope is that the innocence of a three-year-old, who gently leads her grandma outdoors by her grandma's pinkie (when it seemed impossible to the speaker to get the Mom to leave the house) and the interaction with nature will cure her of her blues.  The holding of the pinky also symbolizes the level of maturity between the grandmother and granddaughter. The granddaughter lacks the maturity to understand the emotional aspect of the grandmother’s sickness.

 In stanza five Grandma lies in the grass (primary color green), and allows her innocent, three-year-old granddaughter to bury her in red and yellow leaves, leaving only her face uncovered “all but the cameo” (line 22). The word cameo is associated with a tombstone that shows a person’s face, which symbolized death. The speaker is conveying that his mother metaphorically dead and that although the daughter is trying to help she could also be leading to her metaphorical death.

Ultimately in the sixth stanza, the granddaughter had an innocent belief that the gesture would mean the end of grandma's blues. The reader is left with an upbeat mood because of the gesture, and hopelessness in the poem's beginning is replaced with a hopefulness that grandma, buried in nature by her innocent granddaughter's gesture and expectancy, will shake off her blues and live life again. “believing that with all her heart that that many reds and yellows couldn’t help but thaw her grandma’s blues” (line 26-30)

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