65 pages • 2 hours read
Lynn JosephThe Color of My Words
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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Chapter Summaries & Analyses
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BetaChapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Colors of Power”
Chapter 7 opens on the commotion surrounding election year, as different political candidates paint their “colors of power” (94) everywhere around the country. In the center of the political disruption is the announcement that the government is going to buy out all of the land in the village to develop it for profit. Though Ana Rosa doesn’t understand all of the conflict, she thinks about how everyone in the village has always lived there for generations, she and listens as her family and community members discuss the options ahead.
Ana Rosa quickly forgets about the government and focuses on her upcoming 13th birthday, on which she is going to get “a special surprise” (100). Since Ana Rosa has never gotten a real birthday present, only lovingly made homemade items and experiences, she is especially excited about this birthday and spends time reflecting on her year as a 12 year old. Of significant interest to Ana Rosa is how she can “help Guario to find his future” (101). Guario is named for a Taíno chief, Guarocuya, and Ana Rosa believes that her brother should live up to the namesake.
As the conflict about the government begins to interrupt Ana Rosa’s serious journaling, the townspeople become “a village of rebels fighting to keep our homes” with Guario as a natural leader (105). The government sends a representative to the village to try to convince the people, but with Guario’s voice at the center, the people continue to resist. Ana Rosa is tasked with writing an article for the newspapers, leading to many reporters coming to the village.
On the eve of Ana Rosa’s birthday, Guario is troubled, and he explains that the developers will be coming the next day along with police force to support them. The next day is Ana Rosa’s thirteenth birthday and “Guario stood tall and strong” (116) as he leads the villagers in chanting and preparing for the incoming invasion. As the bulldozers arrive and the guardia walk in, the tension breaks into violence. Several of the young men, including Guario, stop the bulldoze by putting a tree branch into the machine. Then gunshots ring out, and from up high in her gri gri tree, Ana Rosa looks down at Guario and watches as a guardia shoots him. He falls to the ground, dead: “below [her] gri gri, his arms spread wide with angel wings, and that’s when [she] knew it was all [her] fault” (125).
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Color of My Words”
The closing chapter of the novel opens on Ana Rosa, who is in deep grief and refuses to come down from the gri gri tree except at night, when she walks to the beach alone or lies in bed next to Angela. Her sorrow over losing Guario keeps her from writing, even though she has many thoughts. In her mind, Ana Rosa sees that “the color of [her] words was red” (128).
A woman from the village, Señora Perez, gifts Ana Rosa a painting of Guario sitting at the foot of her gri gri tree. He has angel’s wings.
After a few days have gone by, Ana Rosa is triggered by a loud noise in the village and is forced to feel all of the memory of seeing Guario die. She decides to never write again and to never return to the gri gri tree. Ana Rosa realizes that a lot has changed in the village; by six months after Guario’s death, she finally remembers that she is now 13 years old, and Ana Rosa’s family plans a celebration for her. On that morning, Papi and Mami give Ana Rosa a brand new, beautiful typewriter and many sheets of paper. The card with it has everyone’s name, including Guario’s. Mami explains, “He told us that you would need this for your future… you must be a writer” (135). When Ana Rosa protests, Mami retorts that it is time for a change.
Filled with emotion, Ana Rosa walks along the beach, where she thinks of her brother and wonders if she can find forgiveness. She shouts, “I’m sorry” (137) into the waves and sky. With new motivation, Ana Rosa realizes that she has to write Guario’s story, and that she can start, thanks to the gift of the typewriter.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
As a short novel, The Color of My Words rapidly approaches the most significant climax of the plot in Chapters 7 and 8. Ana Rosa describes the increased political energy surrounding an upcoming election, describing the “colors of power” (94) painted by different candidates. This specific titular reference foreshadows the importance of the political scene to the larger context of the novel: the people in power will shape Ana Rosa’s life and the fate of her community. The upcoming election is a plot device used by Joseph to also interject subtle commentary on the ways that politics affect different members of the Dominican population; the small village is used as a microcosm of the larger landscape of the country.
One of the key threads of the novel is the way that Ana Rosa develops as a young person. Age features significantly in the plot, especially as Ana Rosa nears her thirteenth birthday with excitement. Since The Color of My Words is a young adult novel, Lynn Joseph’s focus on Ana Rosa’s age is both appropriate for the audience as well as an important aspect of her character development. By showing Ana Rosa and how she changes and matures as she gets older, Joseph creates a canvas for young readers to project onto, whether to see themselves or to understand peers more easily.
We see the most significant psychological portrayal in the closing chapters of the novel when Ana Rosa skips over her thirteenth birthday in the wake of acute trauma. After watching her brother die at the foot of the gri gri tree, Ana Rosa completely shuts down, refusing to interact with anyone else for days. Through this portrayal of a typical trauma response, Joseph illustrates for any audience, young or old, how a young adult might be impacted by a death or by witnessing violence. Even more importantly, since the novel is set in the first person, Joseph is able to use Ana Rosa’s honest, descriptive voice to narrate the different things she feels and experiences as she processes Guario’s death. Thus, Ana Rosa’s development and maturation are critical to the purpose of the novel as a whole, as Joseph uses Ana Rosa to teach her readers about the complex impacts of traumatic violence and how young people move past violent situations.
