A Meditation on Yellow Summary
1. Created by: Patricia L. PittSan Fernando East Secondary School, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies
2. Travellers’ Tales
3. Meditation on YellowJennifer Rahim, lecturer in English in theDepartment of Liberal Arts at the University of theWest Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad has describedthis poem as “a clever, satirical monologue thattraces the evolution of the capitalist ethos in theregion.”She notes that “Senior evokes the color yellow assymbol of a historical continuum of plunder,enslavement, and servitude that marks theCaribbean’s relations with the developed world,beginning with the conquistadors’ misguided searchfor gold, then the sugar of the colonial plantationeconomy, and finally the trade in sunshine and sandof the contemporary tourist industry.”
4. Meditation on Yellow-Part 1Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a novel entitledOne Hundred Years of Solitude. He has statedthat his favourite shade is:“The yellow of the Caribbean seen fromJamaica at three in the afternoon…”A dominant theme in his One Hundred Yearsof Solitude is the inevitable and inescapablerepetition of history. The protagonists arecontrolled by their pasts and the complexity oftime.García Márquez also used colours as symbolsin this book. Yellow and gold were the mostfrequently used colours and they weresymbols of imperialism and the SpanishSiglo de Oro. Gold signified a search foreconomic wealth, whereas yellow representeddeath, change, and destruction.
5. Meditation on Yellow-Part 1El Dorado is Spanish for "thegolden/gilded one"). Legend has itthat it was the name of a Muiscatribal chief who covered himselfwith gold dust and, as an initiationrite, dived into a sacred highlandlake.Later it became the name of alegendary "Lost City of Gold" thathas fascinated – and so far eluded –explorers since the days of theSpanish Conquistadors. Thoughmany have searched for years onend to find this city of gold, noevidence of such a place has beenfound.El Dorado came to be usedmetaphorically of any place
2. Travellers’ Tales
3. Meditation on YellowJennifer Rahim, lecturer in English in theDepartment of Liberal Arts at the University of theWest Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad has describedthis poem as “a clever, satirical monologue thattraces the evolution of the capitalist ethos in theregion.”She notes that “Senior evokes the color yellow assymbol of a historical continuum of plunder,enslavement, and servitude that marks theCaribbean’s relations with the developed world,beginning with the conquistadors’ misguided searchfor gold, then the sugar of the colonial plantationeconomy, and finally the trade in sunshine and sandof the contemporary tourist industry.”
4. Meditation on Yellow-Part 1Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a novel entitledOne Hundred Years of Solitude. He has statedthat his favourite shade is:“The yellow of the Caribbean seen fromJamaica at three in the afternoon…”A dominant theme in his One Hundred Yearsof Solitude is the inevitable and inescapablerepetition of history. The protagonists arecontrolled by their pasts and the complexity oftime.García Márquez also used colours as symbolsin this book. Yellow and gold were the mostfrequently used colours and they weresymbols of imperialism and the SpanishSiglo de Oro. Gold signified a search foreconomic wealth, whereas yellow representeddeath, change, and destruction.
5. Meditation on Yellow-Part 1El Dorado is Spanish for "thegolden/gilded one"). Legend has itthat it was the name of a Muiscatribal chief who covered himselfwith gold dust and, as an initiationrite, dived into a sacred highlandlake.Later it became the name of alegendary "Lost City of Gold" thathas fascinated – and so far eluded –explorers since the days of theSpanish Conquistadors. Thoughmany have searched for years onend to find this city of gold, noevidence of such a place has beenfound.El Dorado came to be usedmetaphorically of any place
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