Introduction
Dark and light imagery is a major and noteworthy motif in the story “Xmas, Jamaica Plain” presented by Melanie Rae Thon. Throughout the story, the description of homeless kids is portrayed through different aspects. The authors uses the portrayal of people having different background and puts special emphasis on the people living under the ratio of poverty and thus tend to be involved in criminal activities (Martone, pp. 609-10). For example, Thon scratches two characters having no place to live and tends to find out an appropriate place to get rid of their hunger and cold. Having tried and failed to find such place, they ultimately get into Jamaica Plain and sneak into a house. This paper aims to describe the condition of homeless kids, who are abandoned…show more content… The conception of life and death emerges when Emile goes on to commit suicide. To represent the concept of life and death, Thon presents various phrases such as “the butterflies between his bones” (p. 5) and “snow fell like pieces of broken light” (p. 4). It would not be wrong to state that the term “broken” has a noteworthy connotation to the term “light.” On the other hand, bruises visible on the abdomen of Emile represent butterflies as a symbol of happiness and rebirth. In addition, all these motioned images have been used to push the light and dark imagery until their collapse. In fact, they are asking the question whether life is preferable or death. With the death of Emile, the torments “concerning to be a specific gender” of the main character of the story have been put towards their end. However, she remains trapped through her poverty as the narrator still has aspiration of life (Simson, p.n.d). Therefore, the light and dark imagery describes both unfairness in class structure and unfairness in life and
