A Way You'll Never Be

I did some research on the color yellow and its meanings, and found that it has conflicting symbolism. In some instances yellow is used to represent hope and happiness, but yellow can also stand for cowardice or deceit. I think that both meanings of the color yellow are employed in "A Way You'll Never Be." It has been established that the cowardice is portrayed because of the demoralizing situation he is in, at the mercy of a man shooting him in the head. He sees the yellow house, representing his feeling of cowardice, insignificance, and defeat. I believe that the other meaning of yellow is apparent here as well. The yellow house could represent hope and happiness, and the river stands in between him and this happiness or hope. The presence of the house represents his feeling of cowardice, and the fact that the house is far away, seemingly out of reach because of the river, represents the feeling of hopelessness. The river may be a representation of the war or his wound, which is the obstacle that stands between Nick and his sense of happiness and hope. He will never reach the yellow house to learn more about it in this hallucination because the river stands in his way, just as he will never reach happiness in reality because of the events of the war. The war stripped him of his hope for sanity because of the head wound he suffered. The hallucination is a result of this head wound, so in a way, I think his hallucinations represent his reality in a euphemistic way. His negative feelings of hopelessness and cowardice due to the war and a head wound are represented by a yellow house on the other side of the river.