Elisabeth Hartog Hess

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I am currently writing a novel that involves Dutch history, and I was curious why the Dutch Royal Family is called the House of Orange. Orange is a color that shows up in many shades in my novel; in describing a sunset, the placement of a bowl of favorite fruit, in explaining bravery. The House of Orange and the color orange fit unusually well in this book because they operated on two levels at once: as a historically authentic marker of Dutch identity and as a recurring emotional symbol in the protagonist’s life.

The House of Orange was essentially born when William of Nassau inherited the Principality of Orange in 1544 from his cousin and became William, Prince of Orange. He later became the known as the founding figure of the Dutch state, known as William the Silent in the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule. From him, the name Orange became permanently associated with the Dutch ruling family and, eventually, with Dutch national identity.

Orange becomes a symbol of change in the protagonist’s life, from dependence to independence, from faith to medicine, from indecision to witness, and appropriately, orange is made from red and yellow. It is neither one nor the other. It is a color of diversity, a color with the knowledge and history of other colors. The protagonist spends much of her life occupying the space between worlds, and to make the reader feel that on a literary, emotional and spiritual level, orange was the perfect descriptor.