1. Symbolism Presentations
Feel free to read direct quotations, but do NOT read verbatim from the slides or handout
Separate your individual presentations by slide or question, if possible
Class should mark pages in their textbook, as a wide variety of examples is likely to hit on a chapter that may by your midterm excerpt
No need to introduce quotations with proper context, provided that you verbally do so

2. Symbolism Presentation: Part 1
Introduction of the color red occurs repeatedly in the chapter “sanctuary”:
In Melinda’s first art class, Mr. Freeman’s hands are “muddy red” as he writes the word soul in “clay streaks” that look like “dried blood” (10).
Students later choose their art project as mr. freeman “walks around the room so [they] can pull red scraps from the name of an object” (12).
Finally, Mr. Freeman marks each of the students with this color with the same red clay as he “breaks off fist-sized balls, and tosses one to each of [them]” (12).
Explanation: first impression: Depth, positivity and openness, full circle with last chapter of the novel

3. Symbolism Presentation: Part 2
Series of examples from which a general meaning can be deduced:
The symbol expands to a variety of deep emotions in the novel:
Anger: In math class, Rachel has “red eyes that burn [Melinda’s] forehead” (39).
Happiness and emotional warmth: “It was like falling up into a storybook, yummy and red and leaf and the branch not shaking a bit” (66).
Being emotionally overwhelmed: “I don’t remember passing out. David says I hit my head on the edge of the table on my way down. The nurse calls my mom because I need stitches” (81).
Fear: “IT is there. Andy beast. Little rabbit heart leaps out of my chest and scampers across the paper, leaving bloody footprints on my roots” (160).

4. Symbolism Presentation: Part 3
How the symbol red resolves at the climax and/or denouement:
Climax: Andy punches Melinda: “AN explosion in my head and blood in my mouth. He Hit me” (194). And then, Melinda cuts andy: “I hold [the triangle of glass] to andy evans’s neck. He freezes. I push just hard enough to raise one drop of blood” (195).
Emotional intensity: emotional intensity of desperation and courage (Melinda) and fear (Andy)
Symbolic also because of the specific location of red
Two ways in which this symbolic image is ironic—creates an emotional impact on the reader at its discovery

5. Symbolism Presentation: Part 3
How the symbol red resolves at the climax and/or denouement:
Denouement: The final image of the color red resides in mr. Freeman’s sunrise as he paints over the freshly painted white walls of the art room: “Mr. Freeman mixes orange and red to get the right shade of sunrise” (197).
The entire art room symbolizes a new beginning for Melinda, both in the fresh paint and the image of a sunrise since sunrises literally begin a new day. Melinda cries at the overwhelming feelings of relief and closure for completing her art project and finally mustering up the courage to tell her teacher that andy raped her.

6. Symbolism Presentation: Part 4
Series of examples from which a theme can be deduced:
The color red often appears with Melinda’s bleeding, which is often self-inflicted:
“I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist…I draw little windowcracks of blood, etching line after line” (87).
“I pull the edge of my thumbnail back too far and it bleeds” (109).
“there is blood on the snow. I bit my lip clear through. It needs stitches” (136).
Anderson’s use of the symbol red is to suggest that a great deal of personal suffering in life is actually the result of continually punishing ourselves well after we have been wronged by others. In this way, each of us is our own worst enemy.