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The narrator asserts that Ove lived his life in black and white before he met Sonja. After meeting her, she brought color into his world by adding love and life to his existence. In this way, color comes to represent love, life, and the connection Ove has to Sonja. After her death, the only color Ove sees are the pink flowers he brings to her grave every week. They function as a reminder of the life and vivacity that Ove once experienced, though they die and don't last. Nasanin's drawings of Ove, on the other hand, are done in riotous color. When Ove agrees to accept Nasanin and her family into his life and puts her drawings up on his fridge, he regains the color and love in his life.
Color (Pink) Quotes in A Man Called Ove
The A Man Called Ove quotes below all refer to the symbol of Color (Pink). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
Quotes
But Ove isn't bloody arguing. He just thinks right is right. Is that such an unreasonable attitude to life?
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Chapter 5
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He was a man of black and white.
And she was color. All the color he had.
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Chapter 14
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And now she stood outside the station with his flowers pressed happily to her breast, in that red cardigan of hers, making the rest of the world look as if it were made in grayscale.
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Chapter 24
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When she says that last bit she points at a figure in the middle of the drawing. Everything else on the paper is drawn in black, but the figure in the middle is a veritable explosion of color. A riot of yellow and red and blue and green and orange and purple.
"You're the funniest thing she knows. That's why she always draws you in color," says Parvaneh.
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Get the entire A Man Called Ove LitChart as a printable PDF.
Color (Pink) Symbol Timeline in A Man Called Ove
The timeline below shows where the symbol Color (Pink) appears in A Man Called Ove. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
4. A Man Called Ove Does Not Pay a Three-Kroner Surcharge
...put the hook up yesterday. He offers her the plants and tells her that they're pink, and then describes the new neighbors. Finally, Ove leans down, digs up the plant from...
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5. A Man Called Ove
The narrator says that Ove is a man in black and white, while Sonja was color. Before meeting her, the only thing Ove loved was math and numbers. When he was...
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...the next five years. He met Sonja on a train, and she was all the color he had.
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14. A Man Who Was Ove and a Woman On A Train
...father would have gone cross eyed. Finally Sonja arrived and was thrilled to receive the pink flowers.
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19. A Man Called Ove and a Cat That Was Broken When He Came
...the car, gets his flowers, and they walk to Sonja's grave. Ove offers her the pink flowers and introduces the "cat annoyance." He clarifies to Sonja that the cat looked mangy...
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24. A Man Called Ove and a Brat Who Draws In Color
...the figures are all drawn in black except for Ove, who is drawn in bright colors. She tells Ove that Nasanin always draws Ove in color because she thinks he's funny.
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30. A Man Called Ove and a Society Without Him
Ove replaces the pink flowers at Sonja's gravestone and then tells her that life has been mayhem as an...
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34. A Man Called Ove and a Boy in the House Next Door
...wait for him because he doesn't have time to die right now. He replaces her pink flowers and heads back to the parking lot, muttering that there's a war on.
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37. A Man Called Ove and a Lot of Bastards Sticking Their Noses In
...Ove threw the letter away and put the photograph on his fridge next to Nasanin's color drawing of Ove.
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