Indigo :: essays research papers

Amber Hutchison Post Modern Fiction Indigo February 23, 2000 People are born with passion. The irony is that most people spend all their lives searching for that passion without looking inside that soul to the heart of the passion. The trick to discovering that passion is to find what makes us happy. For Indigo the main character of Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo by her passion lies in the music she creates from her soul while using her violin as her tool. From a modern literary criticism standpoint this passion is seen through her characterization and the symbolic use of the violin. However in peeling back the layers and focusing on this story from a Post – Modern standpoint the reader uncovers deeper issues. There is a sense of discontinuity in the linear structure that leads to a discovery about the cultural issues in this story. Indigo challenges the boundaries of her age and a society that struggles to find a place for her and her soul. That is going under the assumption t hat there is a place. "Indigo did not tell her mother about Mr. Lucas being so evil, nor did she mention that her new fiddle could talk."(Norton 43) With in the first few lines of the story Indigo’s violin begins its transformation from merely and instrument to an extension of her soul. Symbolically Indigo’s violin is representative of her soul. With her violin Indigo pursues the passions of her soul as she struggles to find her place somewhere between childhood and womanhood. Indigo’s mother begs her not to play the violin anymore at night because the neighbors complained about the awful noise. She forces Indigo to take lessons or go somewhere else to play. By rejection her violin her mother rejects the heart and soul of Indigo. Only when she flees to Sister Marie Louise’s shed is she able to play her music and bare her soul to the world. The violin takes on the presence of sin in her life as her mother forbids her to play. It is the forbidden fruit that Indigo longs to taste. Indigo’s character constantly revolves through the turmoil of a young adolescent on the brink of woman hood. "Then she would blush, hurriedly out the fiddle back into the case, the Colored and Romance having got the best of her."(Norton 45) Indigo is not ready to take that final step into womanhood but she is brave enough to sample.