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The final assignment (essay, podcast episode, or oral presentation) invites students to introduce readers to a theory studied in Media Criticism, an upper division course in communication studies, and then analyze a media artifact using the main concepts from their chosen theory. Mya offers a cogent introduction to rhetorical theory and then conducts a persuasive analysis of Little Women by providing a careful analysis of lighting and color and how rhetorical theory explains meaning to these material aspects of media.

-Dr. Shelley Bradfield

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When a movie makes a young girl cry, when a show makes a couple hold each other tighter, or when an article turns a man into an activist, there is no doubt that media can influence moods, ideas, and actions. Rhetorical scholars analyze media for this very thing, to discover how parts of a text work to influence its audience (Ott, 2010). Rhetorical theory seeks to understand how symbols portray certain messages, claiming no text or media is without purposeful underlying themes (Ott, 2010). The separation of rhetoric is between cognitive and material elements, which distinguish language and ideas from objects and environments (Ott, 2010). This paper will apply rhetorical theory to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, analyzing how the material symbols of lighting and color inform the audience about the timeline and character development. First, the paper will explore how lighting symbolizes the passage of time. Next, it will analyze how color intentionally reflects the characters’ growth and storyline. The implications of these choices by Gerwig highlight the tension between childhood nostalgia and the harsh reality of adulthood for women coming of age.

Foundational scholars, including Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Roland Barthes, agree that signs are critical to rhetorical theory. Studying linguistics, Saussure analyzed language as signs, consisting of a signified and signifier working together to create meaning (Ott, 2010). Pierce theorized the relationships between the sign, object, and interpretant, classifying signs as either icons, indices, or symbols (Ott, 2010). Distinguishing between denotation and connotation, Barthes proposed meaning as dependent on every part of the rhetorical system and never final (Ott, 2010). Barthes was an important analyst, shifting rhetorical studies to expand from language to visual media (Nazlı Köksal & İnatçı, 2020). As also seen in the work of Nazlı Köksal and İnatçı, visual media is a rising piece of rhetorical theory that is becoming more widely known and researched (2020).

Visual media has material elements of rhetoric, including affects and aesthetics. Aesthetics can be understood as textual properties discovered through the senses contributing to the meaning of a text (Ott, 2010). Specific characteristics include color, lighting, editing, movement and framing, and sound, as defined by Ott (2010). Working together as symbols (or signs), these characteristics help to inform a viewer of the meaning of a scene beyond the language that is spoken. For example, the cool hues of a bright gown will stand out in a ballroom full of muddled warm tones, drawing the eye and creating an impact for the audience to see the character as important. No cast member or subtitle mentions the importance, but it is symbolized as such to create aesthetic meaning. Content in visual media creates meaning through aesthetics uniquely because it is informed

 

by a viewer’s past experiences and imagination (Nazlı Köksal & İnatçı, 2020). For instance, when an actor is lit from behind, creating a halo-like glow above their head, they are seen as warm or romanticized. This inference is informed by a viewer’s knowledge of moments in soft light such as during a sunset or sunrise. As Darrell Roe concludes, contrast and lighting can give specific attention to elements unique to its medium (2002). Aesthetics, in the context of visual media, are not simply perceived qualities, but elements that shape the viewer’s emotional response and interpretation of the text. They are influenced by experiences and stimulate emotions, creating deep layers of meaning beyond what’s first visible. In these ways, aesthetic symbols are powerful as they relate to visual media.

Little Women is a film that relies on aesthetics to form its storyline and meaning. The classic story following the March sisters, four girls raised by a gentle mother to know their worth and live selflessly, is known by many. Gerwig’s 2019 movie adaptation of Little Women is critically acclaimed and often cited for its feminist messages. Each March daughter follows her own coming-of-age story, either finding love or themselves. Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy grow from childhood to womanhood across the twisting storyline of the movie. Each girl is shrouded in specific colors that follow her throughout the film, informing the audience of her character and role further. The story is told non-linearly and begins in the middle of the timeline, bouncing back and forth between what happens before and after, covering seven years. To make sense of the timetable, lighting is employed to guide the viewer. Through a rhetorical analysis lens, it is valuable to examine the lighting and color that Gerwig uses in Little Women to shape the March sisters’ journey from girlhood to womanhood.

In Little Women, blue hues of cool lighting symbolize the present-tense storyline, where the girls are adults and Jo is reflecting on their lives, while golden warm lighting symbolizes past events, giving them a nostalgic glow. The plotline is dependent on these shifts because the film moves back and forth between the two often, creating significant comparisons and editing cuts. For example, Beth, one of the March sisters, gets critically sick twice in seven years. Yet, the audience sees these events stacked on top of each other, as if they were happening simultaneously. The most important signifier of time is shown in the lighting cast on the scene.

When she is 13, Beth catches scarlet fever by caring for an impoverished family with sick children.

Yet we see these events only after we learn that Beth falls ill again when she is 23. When Jo hears about Beth being sick for the second time, she is living in New York and rushes home to see her sister. Once by her side, Jo promises to get Beth well by going to the sea to “get her strong.” The scene where Jo and Beth sit on a blanket on the sand is informed by a scene just minutes before, but years away, when all of the sisters and their friends spent a sunny day at the beach. The young beach scene is shrouded in the sun, golden straw hats, and the joy of the March sisters. The wind moves their glittering hair around their faces. The lighting of the scene is symbolic of the whimsical time in the girls’ lives, where laughter and love interests are their biggest concerns. There is so much life and hope in this scene. The boys that are there with them, Laurie, Fred, and John, are love interests and husbands to the sisters, which the viewers know. Getting a glimpse of them young and before they are in love leaves room for intrigue and expectancy as the story unfolds. This is in stark contrast to the present tense scene where Beth’s sickness is a reality. Years later, Jo and Beth on the beach are met with a gloomy gray sky

 

and wind that whips their hair across their face fiercely. This is symbolic of the severity of the scene, as the audience anticipates the end of Beth’s young life. The dull lighting of the scene makes Beth and Jo’s beige skirts blend in with the sand around them. They persuade the audience that growing up makes even the beach lose its luster when grief paints over the memories.

Continuing with Beth’s sickness, there are almost identical scenes that symbolize hope and loss, based on the signifiers of the lighting they are shot in. After Jo and Beth are back from the beach for the second time, Beth is still sick. She is seen lying on her bed, low-key lighting emphasizing the shadows and contrast of dark and light all around her in a cool blue tinge. The film quickly moves to a flashback of when she first contracted scarlet fever by showing her in the same bed but with red and yellow tones all across the room, emphasized by the sun casting a glow on the room. The film lingers on Beth here and we see her sisters and mom care for her while she struggles in sickness. In both timelines, we see Jo fall asleep next to her sister. Then, parallel scenes are shown when she wakes up. In the first instance, Jo wakes up, sunlight filling the room. The warm brown accents of the paint and wallpaper stand out as the camera pans the scene quickly. Jo does not see Beth on the bed and rushes downstairs in fearful anticipation. Her eyes water as she turns into the kitchen and is relieved to see her sister sitting at the kitchen table, fever broken. Years pass and Jo wakes up in a room with very different hues. Blues and cool lighting shroud her serious face as her eyes open again, this time the blue wallpaper deep and dark, not muddled by the sunlight. As Jo goes down the stairs again, this time she turns the corner to see her mother alone at the table. The kitchen is dark, shadows lingering where Beth sat years before, now an empty chair.

The lighting is significant as it uses elements beyond the script to portray moods and use visual rhetoric effectively, as seen in Beth’s story. As claimed by Roe, patterns of light guide attention and generate emotions on screen (2002). We see this distinctly, as soft, high-key, golden lighting is symbolic of hope, while low-key, stark, cool tones point out harsh truths of grief and growing up. With a golden hue at the beach and in the March home, the audience is convinced that childlike hope will carry Beth through her sickness. Life is simple and happy endings are sure in the innocence and beauty of childhood, the warm lighting suggests. In stark contrast, a harsh blue light creates dark corners of scenes and wakes the audience up to see the reality of growing up. Loss and grief are anticipated because the rose-colored glasses of youth have been taken off. Reality looks like facing the consequences of sickness and allowing the true colors of life to fill the space. As studied by Roe through the series True Women, consecutive scenes with different lighting techniques establish the women actors as complex, able to be both intellectual and dramatic (2002). Similarly, Gerwig can show the intricacies of life and women more effectively through a complex coming-of-age story conveyed by warm and cool tones.

Along with lighting, colors are also employed as symbols in Little Women, giving the sisters depth beyond cognitive rhetorical characteristics. Each sister is adorned in a distinct color or colors that are symbolic of their nature, even across the changes of time. According to Ott, color is significantly able to influence emotions because of its immediate ties to experiences and nature (2010). Audiences see color and instantly connect it to an emotion or mood they associate it with (Ott, 2010). In Little Women, Jo is found wearing red, Meg in green

 

and lavender, Beth in brown and pink, and Amy in light blue.

First, Jo draped in red moves the attention towards her as passionate and strong, reinforcing her role as the narrator and focal point of the story. Jo is a beautifully complex character, much like the color that represents her. As Jo walks with her sisters, she wears a deep red coat that contrasts with the white winter snow.

She wears a red dress to a ball, a maroon dress to the theater, and a red skirt to welcome Amy back home. Jo wraps a red scarf around her neck while ice skating and ties a red collar around her neck at the beach, on a walk with Laurie, and while living in New York. The color not only follows her in her clothing but also as she writes. We see her take out a red notebook full of writings that she compiles into a book about her life with a red leather cover. According to Herman Cerrato, red is intense, evoking emotions from energy and war to warning and love (2012). We see this spectrum across Jo’s coming-of-age storyline, which has her fighting to be independent and charge her own path, fueled by burning passion in her youth. Yet, as Jo grows up, she ends up desperate for the companionship of love that she used to despise, not wanting to feel lonely anymore. Her adventurous devotion to individualism meets the conflict of desiring love, a product of growing up as a woman. In the harsh reality of adulthood, pragmatic decisions outweigh the idealism of youth. Gerwig uses dialogue and narrative to examine the complexities of Jo’s feelings, which are emphasized by the scarlet in her costume.

Next, Meg’s colors are green and lavender, symbols of the harmony, safety, and femininity that she brings to balance out her sisters. She wears green, which emphasizes a stable and nurturing role (Cerrato, 2012). Meg is seen in a green hat and coat, persuaded by a friend to buy expensive turquoise fabric to sew a dress.

She wears a green scarf to keep warm, wears a green dress when Beth gets sick, dresses in green to welcome Amy home, and is surrounded by greenery at her wedding. Often, Meg is seen as the peacemaker in her family. Especially when Jo and Amy are bickering, Meg sweeps in to lend a kind word to Amy, calling her “my sweet.”

Meg also accents this with lavender, a color that evokes feminine romantic, and nostalgic feelings, according to Cerrato (2012). Her dress to the first dance is purple and lacy, her lavender shawl keeps her warm, and she wears a long purple dress to deliver their Christmas breakfast. She is very romantic as she participates in balls and beauty pageants, eventually falling in love. As Meg becomes a woman, she is faced with the conflict of her passions of stability and romance. She marries John, a writing tutor who is unable to sustain her dreams of a lavish life, complete with lace and fancy things. Yet, she is driven by love to settle down with him, despite her sacrifice of certain girlhood dreams. Gerwig leans into this tension through Meg’s character, commenting on

a woman’s experience balancing dreams of lavishness and love, concluding that a woman can not have both authentically, but one must pick and settle.

Next, Beth is depicted in brown and pink tones, highlighting her friendly and calm nature. According to Cerrato, pink is associated with compassion, love, and nurturing, while brown indicates calmness and reliability (2012). These two intertwine with each other and compliment the quiet, caring Beth. Beth is the sweetest of the sisters, caring for all of them and staying quiet amid the March sister chaos. Across the film, we see her gentle and generous heart, even as she visits a family in poverty and catches scarlet fever from them. She wears a pink shawl over a brown skirt out in the cold, a brown cardigan with her sisters, a brown plaid dress at home, and a

 

brown dress when she is sick at the beach. She is also seen in pink at Meg’s wedding, playing the piano, and on the beach on the first sunny day. The contrast of pink and brown also comments on the tragedy of Beth’s life. In the happiest moments of the film, she is wearing pink hues to celebrate. When she is in pain and suffering from her sickness, she is dressed in more brown tones. Gerwig adds to the complexity of Beth through costuming, as she’s dressed in soft colors, causing the audience to look at her with compassion and charity, while they see both the happiness and loss she goes through.

Lastly, Amy, the youngest, wears light blue, a symbol of her intellect, confidence, and determination.

Blue is one of the most popular colors, having a variety of meanings, claims Cerrato (2012). It is often associated with honesty and loyalty, and, on the flip side, can be associated with manipulation or stubbornness (Cerrato, 2012). Amy is almost always wearing light blue, as seen in her hat and dresses in Paris, a plaid blue dress she wears for Christmas, her pastel scarf, blue layers under a shawl, and a blue dress at Meg’s wedding. Amy wears a blue floral print as she reconnects with Laurie and a flowy blue petticoat as she rejects an engagement ring from Fred. Amy is a spunky character who gets in the most trouble of all of the March sisters. She often quarrels with Jo, where we see her determination and confidence come out strong. She steals and burns Jo’s writings out of bitterness and claims bold things, like telling Fred, “I am going to come find you one day in Paris.” Her spunkiness is emphasized by the costuming and color that follows her throughout the film. When she’s young, Amy’s personality is seen as annoying and immature by the other sisters who often dismiss her. Yet, her determination and confidence are what allow her to travel with her aunt to Paris as an adult, eventually reconnecting with Laurie and ending her relationship with Fred to marry him. The blue associated with Amy gives her a distinct look and humanizes her more, as a girl with complex thoughts and feelings about love. She recognizes the economic proposition that marriage is while getting the man that all of the sisters swooned over in their childhood, Laurie. Gerwig paints Amy in light blue to show her unconventionality and growth as a determined, honest young woman.

The colors of the March sisters represent different perspectives of women as they come of age. The nostalgia of childhood is understood through the sisters’ personalities accented by their costumes. Jo’s youth is sprinkled with dreams of red-hot adventure and passion, Meg’s future is romanticized by lavender and green dreams, Beth’s simple care and generosity are expected to continue as she dons pink and brown, and Amy’s innocence and stubbornness are painted in pastel blue. As they grow up, life does not stay as simple as they might have dreamed. Jo’s passion turns into a surprising longing for love, Meg swaps her lace for a humble family, Beth falls tragically ill and faces the reality of passing away, and Amy grows to use her spunk to get her way.

Through these colors and their transformations, Gerwig captures the bittersweet journey of growing up, where childhood dreams give way to the compromises of adulthood.

Greta Gerwig utilizes visual rhetoric in Little Women, which is emotionally rich and layered with meaning. Past and present are blended but distinguished through lighting, while personalities are tied to color values, enhancing the storytelling dramatically. Little Women is a significant media artifact when understanding the implications of visual rhetoric. In media, women are often portrayed or understood as simplistic from youth

to adulthood, just needing the right man to complete them. This movie challenges that by showing the March sisters as complex, even while they understand the role that marriage plays in their lives. Through each of their unique stories, the idealism of girlhood and the pragmatism of womanhood are represented in a new way. It paves the way for films to take similar approaches and comment on women in society, as their dreams and reality are held in contention. Rhetorical theory allows the film to be seen through the symbols and signs that the director utilizes, although it is a limited view. As Köksal and İnatçı determine, the conclusions of visual rhetoric need to be expanded when understanding media (2020). Visuals are a small part of how an artifact uses rhetoric to persuade an audience, which is rich with cognitive aspects such as language, genre, and form. To further understand Little Women’s influence, other theories can be applied to its features, such as a feminist or socio-historical theory study. These would explore how the film challenges or reinforces societal norms positioned inside of its historical context. Overall, rhetorical theory is valuable as it highlights how aesthetics like warm vs. cool lighting and distinct color patterns deepen the March sisters’ stories, enriching the coming-of-age story of Little Women.

Works Cited

Cerrato, H. (2012). The meaning of colors. The Graphic Designer.

Nazlı Köksal, F. and İnatçı, Ü. (2020) Visual rhetoric based on triadic approach: Intellectual knowledge, visual representation, and aesthetics as modality. Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies/Revue de l’Association Internationale de Sémiotique, 2020(233), 35–53. https://doi. org/10.1515/sem-2018-0075

Ott, B. L., & Mack, R. L. (2010). Rhetorical analysis. In Critical media studies: An introduction (pp. 99-122). Wiley-Blackwell.

Roe, D. L. (2002). Framing the frontier heroine–in a better light: Production aesthetics and positive portrayals in the CBS miniseries True Women. Florida Communication Journal, 30(2), 72–85.