The PowerBook has been a very interesting story so far. I never thought someone could take something as nice as a tulip and make it seem so wrong. The tuplip has been referred to many times in this novel, and it makes me wonder why the author chose a tulip. Why not a rose? A rose means love, but so does a tulip. I looked up what the different kinds of flowers mean and this is what I found: A regular tulip means perfect lover, frame, and it is the Flower Emblem of Holland. A red tulip means believe me, and is a declaration of love, a white tulip means beautiful eyes, and finally, a yellow tulip means there’s sunshine in your eyes. Why does the author not tell us what color the tulips are? Is it because there is no love in this story, just “no dificulties, no complications” (Winterson 65)?
PowerBook Post March 6, 2008
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Great idea to look up the symbolism of tulips. Perhaps you could also look into the different kinds of tulips that Ali has – they have names (I don’t have my book in front of me … sorry!).
This would be very interesting for a paper idea: follow those tulips through the novel (in as far as a tulip isn’t always a tulip, if you know what I mean).