Close read the light imagery in Reel by Kennedy Ryan with me.
Reel is book one in the Hollywood Renaissance Series. Close Up, a novella, and Score (book two) are out now as well!
The Epigraph Contains the First Light
Light imagery starts before the book even begins with the epigraph. Kennedy Ryan chose a quote from Chapter 18 of Their Eyes Were Watching God as an epigraph. In this moment, Janie is speaking, and the hurricane grows stronger outside, the danger they’re in becoming apparent:
REEL EPIGRAPH:
“If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.”
– Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Story Reveals More Variants of Light
Many types of light continue to appear in Reel after the epigraph:
- inner light
- golden hour
- stage, theatre, & film set light
- Neevah is careful about sunlight exposure
- Paris, the City of Lights
- night sky and movie star glow
Close Reading Take Away – The Shape of the Motif
Because of the spectrum of imagery included, the light motif Kennedy Ryan creates feels prismatic in shape to me. I could describe Reel’s light motif as radial or kaleidoscope shaped too — the center being the Zora Neal Hurston epigraph. However, in the prismatic description, I get to think of Neevah’s story as Kennedy Ryan’s prism. I picture her beaming that Zora-Neale-Hurston light (from the epigraph) into the story and a colorful refraction taking place. Zora’s light imagery bends and splits into Neevah’s inner light, the golden hour Canon’s mom adored, all the lights on stage, in theaters, and on film sets, etc.
Other Shapes of Light Imagery, Other Novels
Light imagery is prevalent in many novels. When I was analyzing Reel‘s light motif, I thought about The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. In both of these novels, there is singular, laser-focused light imagery:
- the green light representing dreaming in The Great Gatsby
- the lighthouse beacon in To the Lighthouse that both reveals and guides characters.
Annotate With Sara 