Any color can be used symbolically in a poem, novel, or short story. However, few colors are as mysterious and multilayered as black. This deep shade can impart a whole range of symbolic meanings — depending on the context, it can stand for grief, depression, evil, death, mystery, formality, heaviness, or bleakness.
Thanks to its range of potential meanings, black can be a little harder to interpret than some other colors. But taking the time to understand why a writer has included black can grant you a window into the often-complex subtext of a piece. Below are some examples of poetry and prose whose meanings are shaped by black color symbolism.
Black Symbolism in Poetry
Poetry is an art form renowned for its ability to capture complex emotions in relatively few words. There’s a lot that goes into that process — poets choose their words carefully, plan out line breaks and use of white space, and often include figurative language.
In some of these poems, the color black shows up repeatedly throughout. In others, it may only be mentioned once or twice — but the weight of its meaning is so powerful that once or twice is enough. Either way, black color symbolism is particularly important when it comes to shaping each poem’s meaning.
“Black Mare” by Lynda Hull (1990)
Despite the title, Lynda Hull’s “Black Mare” isn’t particularly focused on the horse in question. Instead, the black mare is a recurring and critical symbol in this relatively long poem.
In “Black Mare,” the speaker meditates on a past relationship. It’s apparent that this relationship is connected to a particular hotel. We learn that it isn’t an especially nice hotel, as it’s located very close to the elevated train, which goes by every 20 minutes. The walls are peeling, and the speaker notes that “The iron fretwork of the El/held each room in a deep corrosive bloom.”
The symbol of the black mare first appears here, where the speaker is introducing us to this especially seedy hotel:
This was the bankrupt’s last chance, the place the gambler waits to learn his black mare’s leg snapped as she hurtled towards the finish line.
It’s an unexpected image, and at first, it doesn’t seem to be closely related to the speaker’s situation. It does help give readers a sense of the hotel’s general atmosphere. This unnamed hotel has an aura of decay (“that hotel where the voices/of patrons long gone seemed/to echo in the halls/a scent of spoiled orchids”), and through the example of the “bankrupt” and the gambler who’s just lost money, we see that it’s also a place meant for the desperate or washed-up.
To understand the role the symbol of the black mare plays when it comes up again, we first need to grasp the role it’s playing here. On the surface, the gambler has bet on a black mare in hopes that she’ll win a race and that he’ll see a significant return. The mare doesn’t just lose the race — she breaks down close to the finish line, compounding the sense of loss and despair.
But why make the mare black? There are a couple of potential symbolic meanings here. One is that black can be an ominous shade. The other has to do with the colloquial meaning of “dark horse.” A dark horse is a competitor (like a racehorse, a political candidate, etc.) who isn’t favored to win and hasn’t captured the attention of many — but who unexpectedly wins the competition.
In this case, the gambler’s bet on the mare is also symbolic of his bet on a kind of “dark horse” in his own life. Because he’s hanging around this run-down hotel, we can assume he’s in some financial trouble. Like many gamblers, he hopes this bet will be the one to fix his financial difficulties. Of course, it isn’t, and the fact that the mare breaks down symbolizes that the gambler is now in an even worse spot than he was before.
As the poem continues, we learn that the hotel has since been demolished and that the speaker is no longer in a relationship with the person mentioned before. The black mare appears again:
How did we live? The mare broke down. I was your fate, that yellow train, the plot of sleet, through dust crusted on the pane. It wasn't warm enough. What did we learn? All I have left of you is this burnt place on my arm.
In this context, the black mare tells us more about the speaker’s past relationship than a backstory could. Like the gambler betting on the mare, the speaker effectively bet on this past relationship (“I was your fate”) — and lost.
“The Black Heralds” by César Vallejo (1918)
César Vallejo’s “The Black Heralds” was originally written in Spanish with the title “Los Heraldos Negros.” It’s bookended by the line “Some blows in life, they’re so heavy . . . I don’t know,” and fittingly, it’s an especially heavy poem. “The Black Heralds” captures the sense of pain and outright despair that comes with some of life’s most intense challenges.
In this poem, black stands for death, despair, and depression. The black heralds mentioned are the clearest example of black color symbolism, but there are a couple of subtler instances as well:
These are few, but there they are . . . They carve dark trenches in the toughest faces, the fiercest backs. Perhaps they’re the racks of barbarous Attilas, or else the black heralds that Death has sent us. They’re the steep fall of some Christ from the soul, of the laudable faith that Fate can make foul of. Those bloodied blows are the sounds of bread crackling in oven doors, turning to charcoal.
A “herald” can be either a messenger bringing news of something to come or a sign that something is about to happen. Either definition works well here. We don’t see the word “black” used again, but we do see a couple of related words. The speaker notes that life’s heaviest blows “carve/dark trenches in the toughest faces, the fiercest backs” and that these blows “are the sounds of bread/crackling in oven doors, turning to charcoal.”
Both of these examples emphasize the permanent and damaging effects life’s heaviest blows have on people. The example of “dark trenches” echoes back to the “black heralds” mentioned before. These (metaphorical) trenches also symbolize something permanent. If someone’s skin is damaged this badly, it will almost certainly scar.
The comparison to bread in the oven suggests that these blows are even more damaging. The dark trenches carved into the skin cause scarring, but when bread burns badly enough to turn to charcoal, it completely disintegrates.
As you may have predicted from the overall tone of the poem, there is no turn of events where the speaker discovers some kind of hope. The image at the end of the poem suggests a kind of resignation:
As for man . . . woe is he. . . woe. He turns his gaze, as if answering the call of a slap on the shoulder: his expression is wild and all that he’s lived through is settled, like penitent pools, in his eyes.
After this stanza, the poem’s first line — “Some blows in life, they’re so heavy . . . I don’t know” — repeats itself. It brings the poem full circle, serving as a somber reminder of the never-ending challenges that plague humanity from birth until death.
“Black Maps” by Mark Strand (1970)
In many poems, black is symbolic of death and despair. However, in Mark Strand’s “Black Maps,” it’s tied to one of its other common symbolic meanings: mystery. If you had to sum up the essence of the poem, it would be that navigating one’s way through life (and determining the right path) involves facing unending uncertainty. It’s like following one of the titular, metaphorical black maps — even if you seek some kind of guidance, there’s only darkness. That sense is captured succinctly in the third stanza:
Nothing will tell you where you are. Each moment is a place you've never been.
As much as we might wish there was a clear, guiding force showing us exactly the right steps to take, “Black Maps” emphasizes how disorienting and uncertain each choice in our lives can be. The poem also beautifully outlines how that black uncertainty is ultimately what becomes the architecture (or more appropriately, the map) of our lives. We see that the nebulous darkness begins to take shape and becomes something tangible:
The present is always dark. Its maps are black, rising from nothing, describing, in their slow ascent into themselves, their own voyage, its emptiness. the bleak, temperate necessity of its completion. As they rise into being they are like breath.
Some people might read through the poem and believe that as the “you” in the poem moves through life, they’re gradually encountering what has been predestined for them — that every friendship made or opportunity found is “fate” or “meant to be.” However, the poem doubles down on the mystery of the color black. Central to its meaning is the idea that what we stumble upon is not some kind of predestination:
Your house is not marked on any of them, nor are your friends, waiting for you to appear, nor are your enemies, listing your faults. Only you are there, saying hello to what you will be, and the black grass is holding up the black stars.
In a welcome contrast to the kind of black symbolism often seen in poems, the mystery in “Black Maps” actually has a kind of hopefulness to it. It can be unnerving to make one’s way through the dark unknown, but each step moves toward new possibilities.
“Paradise on Black Ice” by Patrick Donnelly (2012)
Unlike the other poems mentioned here, “Paradise on Black Ice” does not include the word “black” in the body of the poem. However, some of the sentiment that often attaches itself to black does appear. “Paradise on Black Ice” is a poem that deals with a kind of suspended grief. From the first lines, we can tell that the speaker’s “you” is someone likely to die in the (likely) near future: “I wind/the sheet of elegy/while he’s still alive.”
But why give it the distinctive title of “Paradise on Black Ice”? The poem is one of both balance and contradiction. The title suggests that something great (paradise) is in a precarious situation (balancing on black ice). It could fall and break at any moment. Likewise, the speaker is enjoying the connection he has with the poem’s “you” until his inevitable death.
It’s worth noting that it’s no accident that the metaphorical ice in question is black. The color itself is connected to mystery, and as anyone who’s ever stepped on black ice knows, it can appear to come out of nowhere. The speaker doesn’t know when the “you” will die, so it’s especially fitting that black is also connected to death.
The sense of blind precariousness becomes stronger in the second half of the poem:
But right now he's showering with a gospel choir, radio half on and half off that station. And today's heaven is half hell, half whole, half hurt
Just like radio between stations, the “you” is, in a sense, halfway between life and death. The speaker is between loving the “you” in the present and mourning him in the future. “Paradise on Black Ice” is a remarkable poem because while it deals with powerful, fraught emotions, its language remains restrained. The color symbolism used here is part of what makes its emotional weight that much more powerful.
Black Symbolism in Prose
Black’s mysterious allure makes it a natural choice for color symbolism in poetry. However, that doesn’t mean it’s out of place in fiction. Whether it appears in passing or plays a more central role in the plot, black is a color that can add new layers of meaning to novels and short fiction. Below are four short stories and novels where black color symbolism plays a significant role.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1948)
Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” might be one of the most famously controversial short stories in the history of American literature. It first appeared in The New Yorker in 1948. Like many stories published in The New Yorker, “The Lottery” got a considerable amount of attention. But unlike many of these stories, the attention it got was overwhelmingly negative.
To understand that negative attention, you first need to understand the story’s central plot arc. It’s set in an unnamed town in an unknown time period. We learn that the town has an annual tradition called “the lottery.” The tradition is believed to ensure a plentiful harvest. A single person is selected in a process involving drawing a slip of paper from a black box. The person who draws the paper slip with a black mark is the one chosen. We don’t discover until the very end that this chosen person is stoned to death by the villagers.
The story is a bleak one, but where does color symbolism come in? It starts with the black box used for the lottery. When it’s first mentioned, we still don’t know what happens in the lottery itself. In this context, the color of the box is symbolic of mystery, but it also symbolizes tradition: “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.”
Authority might not be the most common symbolic meaning associated with the color black. But in this context, black clearly symbolizes authority. In many societies over the centuries, black has been the color of choice worn by leaders: judges, priests, prime ministers, and more. Even before we know all the details of the lottery, we know the box works as a kind of deciding authority. The fact that it’s made of pieces of the original black box — and that this “new” box has been in use since before the oldest man in town was born — only adds to that sense.
The villagers gather for the lottery, and ultimately, Tessie Hutchinson is the one chosen. At this point, the story takes a brief, unexpected detour as it focuses on the black mark drawn on the piece of paper Tessie draws.
Anyone reading the story and paying even a reasonable amount of attention can already tell that the color black is playing a symbolic role. But right before we discover what it is the lottery is deciding, we get a final and emphatic description of the black mark on the paper: “It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office.”
This single sentence really underscores the symbolic meaning of black in the piece. “Black spot” is repeated twice. The spot is made with a “heavy pencil,” and it’s created in the office of a coal company — a place that evokes the color black.
By the very end of the story, we finally see what is perhaps the most critical symbolic meaning of black in the story: death. We learn that each year, the person who “wins” the lottery is stoned to death by the rest of the villagers.
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the earliest masters of horror fiction, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he often used the color black as a symbol. “The Black Cat,” one of his most famous short stories, is a great example. The sinister symbolism of black in this particular story is underscored by the fact that it appears in the form of a black cat — one of history’s best-known symbols of death and misfortune.
At the story’s outset, there’s ostensibly nothing sinister about the titular black cat. The cat, named Pluto, is the narrator’s favorite pet. The narrator mentions that he has loved animals since childhood, and he and his wife have a whole menagerie of pets. There’s no specific indication that there’s anything sinister to come, but because it’s a Poe story, it’s reasonable to assume something will soon go wrong.
It does — the narrator falls into alcohol abuse and begins to abuse all of his pets. He becomes so angry with Pluto that he cuts out one of his eyes, and one day, he hangs his once-beloved cat in the yard. The narrator’s house burns down, and he spots the outline of the cat in the remaining wall. Perhaps Pluto (and especially his black color) is meant to be an omen of the narrator’s descent into alcohol abuse and complete madness — and the narrator’s killing of the cat is symbolic of his denial. But Poe’s stories are often ambiguous, so the symbolism here is deliberately unclear.
It might seem like the black cat symbolism is over after Pluto’s death, but the narrator finds another cat who looks like Pluto — right down to the missing eye. The only difference is a patch of white fur on his chest, which the narrator is horrified to see turn into the shape of the gallows:
It had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name — and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared — it was now, I say, the image of a hideous — of a ghastly thing — of the GALLOWS! — oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime — of Agony and of Death!
In time, the narrator gets tired of this new cat, and he tries to kill him with an axe. The narrator’s wife tries to intervene, so he kills her instead.
The narrator walls up his wife in new plaster, thinking she’s been safely concealed from police officers who stop by. However, he doesn’t realize he’s trapped the cat behind the wall, too. The cat’s scream alerts the officers, who find the narrator’s wife. But the cat’s scream isn’t just an ordinary yowl — it’s eerie and otherworldly, adding to the story’s general sense of horror:
I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! — by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman — a howl — a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Black isn’t the only symbolic color here. This second cat’s white marking foreshadows justice: when the police determine the narrator has killed his wife, he is sentenced to death by hanging. But what about the cat’s overall dark color? It foreshadows the death of the narrator’s wife as well as the narrator’s (very much deserved) misfortune.
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway (1936)
Ernest Hemingway was a true master of brevity. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a very brief short story without florid language, but it’s rich in subtext. Unlike “The Black Cat,” this story doesn’t have black color symbolism at its center. However, it’s present enough to play a meaningful role in the story.
Francis Macomber and his wife Margot are on a safari in Africa. When the story begins, we discover that Francis has just killed a lion. It sounds like it might be impressive, but we then discover that Macomber has just shown himself to be a coward. He shot the lion from a distance, but only enough to wound him. When he and the hired gun-bearers close in to finish the job, he suddenly gets scared and runs away: “The next thing he knew he was running; running wildly, in panic in the open, running toward the stream.” The other men view him with contempt, and to add insult to injury, Macomber’s wife sleeps with one of the hired gunmen that night. Macomber calls her on it, and she doesn’t even deny it.
However, the next day, everything changes. Macomber and the other hunters spot three massive, black bulls galloping across the prairie. They’re hulking and formidable, much like Macomber’s intense fear of the lion and apparent resignation to his wife’s affairs. This time, Macomber doesn’t retreat, and Wilson, one of the hired hunters, notices a dramatic change:
But he liked this Macomber now. Damned strange fellow. Probably meant the end of cuckoldry too. Well, that would be a damned good thing. Damned good thing. Beggar had probably been afraid all his life. Don’t know what started it. But over now. Hadn’t had time to be afraid with the buff. That and being angry too. Motor car too. Motor cars made it familiar. Be a damn fire eater now. He’d seen it in the war work the same way. More of a change than any loss of virginity. Fear gone like an operation. Something else grew in its place. Main thing a man had. Made him into a man. Women knew it too. No bloody fear.
At first, it might seem like this is where the story ends — Macomber faces down the darkness of his fears and becomes a new man. However, Macomber becomes even more emboldened and confident before something truly unexpected happens:
Wilson, who was ahead, was kneeling shooting, and Macomber, as he fired, unhearing his shot in the roaring of Wilson’s gun, saw fragments like slate burst from the huge boss of the horns, and the head jerked, he shot again at the wide nostrils and saw the horns jolt again and fragments fly, and he did not see Wilson now and, aiming carefully, shot again with the buffalo’s huge bulk almost on him and his rifle almost level with the on-coming head, nose out, and he could see the little wicked eyes and the head started to lower and he felt a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt.
This time, the buffalo comes incredibly close to running right into Wilson, but he doesn’t back down. However, the second he fires the shot and sees the buffalo start to go down, he is shot in the head and killed instantly. The shot is fired by his wife, who ostensibly was firing to save her husband from the bull. Although Wilson suggests it was deliberate, Margot’s true motivation is never revealed.
“Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell (1949)
George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” also known as “1984”, is one of the world’s most famous dystopian novels. Color symbolism isn’t generally the primary thing people focus on when analyzing it, but black color symbolism nonetheless plays a critical role in underscoring its overall meaning.
When the book begins, we learn that the Inner Party, a totalitarian regime, rules society. Citizens are constantly watched, history is rewritten, and Newspeak — a collection of new words benefiting the Party. This new and highly controlled society is one with very little color. However, we see black in two key places: on the clothing of Inner Party members and on the images of Big Brother, a symbol of the party who may or may not be a real person. “Black” appears twice in this very short description of Big Brother: “black-haired, black-moustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm.”
To anyone outside of the Party (or anyone who disagrees with its ideals), the appearance of black in these two places seems nothing short of sinister. However, thanks to a Party tradition called “doublespeak,” there’s a good chance that to members of the Party, the image of Big Brother and the uniforms worn by the guards are seen as either innocent or positive:
The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.
Fittingly, like the very concept of Newspeak, the color black has dual symbolic meanings depending on the point of view (and political persuasions) of the viewer.
Let Black Reveal the Richness of Your Favorite Literary Works
Any time color symbolism of any type shows up in literature, you can be sure there’s a deeper meaning than meets the eye. And thanks to the many different meanings of black, it can add a number of different layers to a text. The next time you dive into a new poem, novel, or short story, be on the lookout for black color symbolism and all that it can add.
Continue exploring and discover what all the other colors mean in literature.
