Red: the color of blood, beauty, alarm, and love. In literature, a symbol, a metaphor, a motif. It’s the color of lust, anger, guilt, and shame, not to mention the Devil himself. In an excerpt from his book, The World According to Color: A Cultural History, shared on Lit Hub, James Fox discusses the psychological effects of the color red and how it figures into some of our greatest literary works, including MacBeth, The Red Shoes, The Wizard of Oz, Rebel Without a Cause, and Schindler’s List.
