wind

[jiang]

Dear teachers,

I have difficulty understanding the following sentence:

The red evening clouds floated above the pine trees. His face was red in the blue wind.
Since the clouds were red at that moment why is the wind blue?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.

Jiang

 

[Rover_KE]

In what context did you find this? Who wrote it?

 

[jiang]

Hi Rover-KE,

This is from Love written by Jesse Stuart.

Jiang

In what context did you find this? Who wrote it?

 

[emsr2d2]

Dear teachers,

I have difficulty understanding the following sentence:

The red evening clouds floated above the pine trees. His face was red in the blue wind.
Since the clouds were red at that moment why is the wind blue?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.

Jiang

I can only assume that the wind was very cold. Blue is usually associated with cold and red with hot, so perhaps the writer was trying to say that there was a cold, biting wind. That would also probably make his face red.

That's just a guess though. With writing like that, sometimes you just have to assume (hope?) that the writer knew what they meant!

 

[jiang]

Hi emsr2d2,

Thank you so much for your explanation. Now I see.

Jiang

I can only assume that the wind was very cold. Blue is usually associated with cold and red with hot, so perhaps the writer was trying to say that there was a cold, biting wind. That would also probably make his face red.

That's just a guess though. With writing like that, sometimes you just have to assume (hope?) that the writer knew what they meant!

 

[JohnParis]

Dear Jiang,
This is just my opinion.
The lines come from a paragraph describing how a son's father appeared to him after they had an encounter with a snake in a corn field, probably in late summer (the corn had wilted). "His face was red in the blue wind" is an expression designed by the author to call something to mind without mentioning it directly. The son and his father had been out all day in the fields and apparently it was a cloudless day until evening. Giving the color blue to wind (a colorless thing) suggests that the day was windy and clear - that the father's face was reddened by sun and wind. At sunset, when clouds have a tendency to form, the fathers face appeared red due to the day spent outside in windy clear weather.
Does this help?
John

 

[jiang]

Dear John,

Thank you so much for your explanation. I think I understand your explanation, that is "blue wind" suggests it was winddy. I misinterpreted "red". I thought it was the color of the setting sun.

Jiang

Dear Jiang,
This is just my opinion.
The lines come from a paragraph describing how a son's father appeared to him after they had an encounter with a snake in a corn field, probably in late summer (the corn had wilted). "His face was red in the blue wind" is an expression designed by the author to call something to mind without mentioning it directly. The son and his father had been out all day in the fields and apparently it was a cloudless day until evening. Giving the color blue to wind (a colorless thing) suggests that the day was windy and clear - that the father's face was reddened by sun and wind. At sunset, when clouds have a tendency to form, the fathers face appeared red due to the day spent outside in windy clear weather.
Does this help?
John

 

[jiang]

Dear John,

It is my fault that I did not provide you with more context.
It was in spring. There is a sentence in the text: This has been a dry srping and the corn has kept well in the earth where the grain has sprouted. And there is another sentence "when the bright sun blazed down on the wilted corn". I think the corn welted because of the bright sun.

Jiang

Dear Jiang,
This is just my opinion.
The lines come from a paragraph describing how a son's father appeared to him after they had an encounter with a snake in a corn field, probably in late summer (the corn had wilted). "His face was red in the blue wind" is an expression designed by the author to call something to mind without mentioning it directly. The son and his father had been out all day in the fields and apparently it was a cloudless day until evening. Giving the color blue to wind (a colorless thing) suggests that the day was windy and clear - that the father's face was reddened by sun and wind. At sunset, when clouds have a tendency to form, the fathers face appeared red due to the day spent outside in windy clear weather.
Does this help?
John

 

[JohnParis]

You're right, Jiang.
But in the part of the United States where the story takes place, they plant corn in the spring and pray that there will be enough water to bring it to harvest in early September. By mid-summer (the 4th of July) corn should be as high as an adult man's knees. So I figured that since the corn had wilted (it did grow a little), it was sometime between early July and late August. It doesn't matter when, however. It's still the word 'blue' that stumps me.
Best, John

 

[5jj]

. By mid-summer (the 4th of July) corn should be as high as an adult man's knees...

...or an elephant's eye?;-)