What do the colors red and white represent in the novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy?

The color white symbolizes the innocence and purity of the young girl on her wedding day, but it is also symbolic of death (hence the white cloth that the San Francisco plague victims hang from their windows). The “white banners of mourning” hanging over Afong’s new home encapsulate the irony, and the tragedy of her situation as a virginal widow (33). In contrast, the “bright red shoes, embroidered with flowers and songbirds” that Afong had made with her mother, and hoped to wear on her wedding day, are symbolic of her brightest hopes (30). She hides the red shoes when she realizes that her marriage will amount to a funeral, and they re-emerge onstage in America amongst other colorful props: poignant symbols of the life and dreams that Afong has left behind.