Page 9 of A Humument (I enjoyed analyzing the page and writing this paper :) )

On page 9 of Tom Phillips' A Humument, Phillips suggests that people in the society often live by systematically following the stages of life. He uses symbols such as color, lines, pictures and captions to point out this belief. The “pictures” Phillips uses are “interesting” because they are on the edges of the page. Touching the edges of the page, the pictures represent the three separated stages of life. These are the stage of marriage, stage of pursuing success and the stage of weakening. Each stage is in “different colour”, such as “brown”, “purple” and “red with white spots on it”. Phillips values the stages as the principles of life that he puts them in “my [his] boudoir”. The word “boudoir” has a meaning of a secret room; Phillips’ implies that he inscribes the principles of life – the three stages- in his “secret room” of his body, his heart. Phillips believes that the stages predict the happenings in people’s life.

Looking at Page 9, one would notice the black rectangle in the middle of the page at first. Its color, light black is the coolest color in the whole page. Also, the rectangle contains shapes that are in its contrary color- white, which makes the rectangle more obvious. Secondly, one would notice the picture that’s in red and white, because it’s next to the rectangle and red is the warmest color of the page. Plus, red is contrary to the color green, which is the color of the background. Immediately, one would set their eyes on the background, because its light green attracts eyes after seeing the red on the previous piece. The background also has many thin lines drawn on it. Phillips creates this sense of messiness to catches attentions. Speaking of attention, the background is crucial because it occupies most areas of the page. Next, two pictures that are on the right hand side would most likely catch one’s attention at the same time. Both “purple” and “brown” in the pictures are warm colors while the details drawn in them are equally complicated.

In the black rectangle, the color light black symbolizes the ignorant and empty minds that the youth have. Black can be related to the black hole, it gives a feeling of empty and nonexistence. The youth are too young that they have no experiences, therefore have no places or existences in the competitive adult world. However, the word “Come, toge” which means “come, together” calls on the union of youth to rebel their vulgar status in the world. The youth would “turn inside” into the problem; develop ideas in solving it and apply actions at last. Together, they would achieve the goal to leap out of the “light black rectangle” with “surprise”.

Marriage would be the first “surprise” that the youth encounter; it is the first stage in their life since they matures or get out of the “rectangle”. As on the first picture of the upper right hand corner, a man is stretching his hands. It makes sense that he is hoping to hug some one, who is mostly likely to be his spouse. Phillips implies that people would usually find the ones they love to hug or marry in life. In the picture, the man seems to be naked. Normally, one would be naked only to the other one he marries, because he loves and believes her. Phillips implies here that people often reveals their true selves to the one they love, and married, because they believe their lovers would understand. No matter how malice the true selves are, they are not shameful reveal the ugly faces to their spouses. Such as the man in the picture who has a strange body structure, his chest and stomach are concave instead of convex. However, he stretches out his hands instead of using them to cover his ugliness. The man is brave to show his defects, and believing in the acceptance and understandings of his lover. At last, the color of the picture “brown” hides special meanings behind the picture. Phillips attempts to emphasize the importance of marriage and forming a family by applying “brown”. “Brown” is a color that would appear every time when any three different colors mixed together. Phillips assigns each of the any three different colors a representation in a family: one color can be the mother, one can be the father and the last one can be the children. The mix of these three types of people perfectly forms elemental family, which is being symbolized by the color “brown”.

The second stage would be the stage when people pursue their successes. The color “purple” on the second picture of the right side, gives a feeling of mystery. The mysterious feeling from “purple” symbolizes the conspiracy in the world while people compete to achieve success. People in the society often trick and compete with each other. In the picture, there is a big gear in the right hand corner and two chains are connected to it. The function of a gear is to work continuously in completing its job. The gear here is symbolizing people who work toward success. People often have to work manually in order to get pay. Sometimes, they even have to push themselves to the peak. Not only requiring to work like the gear, people also have to favor others in the society in order to achieve. As in the picture, the gear connects itself with the chains, symbolizing that one has to please and interact with others. Ultimately, people would succeed when they “fulfill her [their] book” with “dedication”. Here, the “book” symbolizes the lives of people that people has to dedicate in their lives. They might have to give up, comply, but most importantly, they have exhaust themselves to the point that they “shall lie”, or stop. The word “lie” has a similar pronunciation with the word “die” which leads to the third stage of people’s lives.

The third stage would be the stage of weakening. Since the picture in the bottom left of the page is away from all other pictures and captions it symbolizes the ultimate ending of people – death. In the picture, there are white circular spots painted on the background which is in the color red. The white circular spots indeed symbolize the white blood cells in one’s body, while the background color “red” symbolizes the blood that contains the cells. Unfortunately after carefully seeing the picture, one would realizes that there are only white blood cells here. The blood actually lacks of red blood cells. Through this realization, one would quickly think of the incurable disease leukemia, and then would spontaneously think of death. Phillips, through the blood and blood cell symbols, reveals the hidden fact that people often die from diseases in the society.

At last, the background has the color light green. Green should a color that represents peace. However, the green on the background is only light green. Phillips implies that the peace is being taken off while people deceive and trick each other. The background also has many different curly lines on it. The lines actually represent the unique paths of people, while the curliness of them represents the intricacy of paths. Despite the many ways the lines would curl, the lines eventually connect to the three pictures, which mean the three stages of life. By linking the connections, Phillips attempts to tell people’s inevitable encounters to the three stages.

Concluding Page 9 of A Humument, it is a complicated page in which Phillips uses many little symbols to hide his beliefs behind the text and pictures. Phillip has his unique way of expressing the belief that people live their lives by following three main stages, the marriage stage, pursuing stage, and the weakening stage. Nevertheless, Phillips believes that people have to first mature or gain experiences on the world in order to get through these three stages. He suggests his ideas by neatly employing symbols that are mostly pictures and text.