Light and Dark Symbols. PLEASE HELP ME!!?

Question

I am writing a paper about how the normal meanings of the symbols light and dark can be reversed, so the light is bad and dark is good. i need a real life example of this from the media, tv, anything and i can not think of anything!!

Answer 1

Light can be blinding (and cause accidents, for instance), and dark can be romantic.

Answer 2

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Light and Dark Symbols. PLEASE HELP ME!!?
I am writing a paper about how the normal meanings of the symbols light and dark can be reversed, so the light is bad and dark is good. i need a real life example of this from the media, tv, anything and i can not think of anything!!

Answer 3

In The Scarlett letter, much of the symbolism of light and dark is reversed from the accepted meanings.

This is from an essay I found online at:
http://www.createblog.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t51079.html

The use of light to symbolize sin and evil is evident in The Scarlet Letter. From the beginning, the scarlet letter is described as “[...] that Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom”(Hawthorne 37). If the traditional meaning of light were to be applied, as a reader would be inclined to do, the scarlet letter would, instead of a symbolizing sin and evil, be a symbol of good and truth. Progression through the novel reveals that the scarlet letter is in fact evil and light a symbol of sin and evil. Hester Prynne is also described with hair “[...] so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam [...]”(37). Yet this is the Hester that the reader has just been introduced to, the Hester that has committed adultery and is being punished. Pearl, moreover, is described as “[...] the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon this earth”(69). Pearl, who is the symbol of Hester's sin. Pearl, who is the scarlet letter in another form. Pearl, who makes Hester put back on the scarlet letter after she takes it off. This is an evil Pearl, made from sin, cloaked in the adjective of light, which in actuality is evil. Light is plainly evil in this description of Chillingworth: “Sometimes, a light glimmered out of the physician's eyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly fire that darted from Bunyan's awful door-way in the hillside [...]”(88). However, if light symbolizes evil, then what connotation does dark hold?

Dark, usually the symbol of evil and sin, is used as a symbol of good and truth. Minister Dimmesdale, by his name, should be evil. However, Hawthorne reveals that although Dimmesdale sinned, he is good, and compares him to “[...]the dimmest of all shadows”(Hawthorne 98). Minister John Wilson, a thoroughly good character, stands before Hester “with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull cap; while his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine.” (45) The narrator says of Hester Prynne that “It was only the darkened house that could contain her.”(111) Hester has been tamed, not by sin and evil, but by good and truth. Thus dark must symbolize good for this reference to make sense. Dimmesdale is described with a glow “[...] which they had just beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late decaying embers”(171). Yet this is when Dimmesdale is about to confess his adultery and take ownership of Pearl, both of which are good. Hawthorne has made dark symbolic of good and truth in The Scarlet Letter, yet even with different connotations, light and dark still remain firm opposites.