I touched on the topics of duality and perception in my Humble Beginnings and Central Theme post when discussing the juxtaposition of darkness and light. Obviously the contrast between light and dark, life and death, and things of that nature plays a huge role in the book, but the idea of duality takes it a step further by examining the synergy between these seemingly conflicting ideas, I.E. cases where they're both attributed to the same person or situation. The example I used before was how fighting for what you believe in, from your point of view, can look a whole lot more like bringing chaos to the world from someone else's. One of these views is considered positive or "light" while the other is considered negative or "dark". So which is correct?
This comes down to perspective. Neither view can necessarily be considered the "true" view because both perceptions exist, and as individuals our perception is our reality. What's true for you may not be what's true for me, and vice-versa. Without getting too philosophical or confusing or whatever, I'll just get to the point: Sometimes things can be two things at once, and it comes down to our perspective to decide which we see and which we don't.
Take the picture above. This is a quote from one of my favorite scenes from the book. Within the context of the book, it's clear how it's intended to be perceived, but placing the quote by itself made me notice how it could be taken two different ways. Is the character trying to say that he is too mournful to have any hope? Or is he trying to say that he has too much hope to be mournful? I'm curious to hear what people's initial interpretation was. Which light did you cast it in, a mournful one or a hopeful one? Feel free to comment in the section below.
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