The Colours of Life

“The Colours of Life ” relates the life story of an elderly lady in a nursing home. She is crotcheting a woollen rug of many colours. The colours in the rug symbolise various events in her life, “white for a wedding”, “blue for the sea” in which her mariner husband dies, and “pink for the birth of her daughter”. The colour black recurs often as her daughter and her husband die. The story displays literary allusions to the story of Penelope and Ulysses, as the woman's name is Penelope and she has spent much of her life waiting for the return of her husband.