Life is an "Unwritten" Book
Every decision we make in life is strongly influenced by the rules society has set up for us. According to the song “Unwritten” by Nastasha Bedingfield, these rules prevent us from living life to its fullest. The theme of this song is to live life to its fullest by making your own choices and taking risks. Bedingfield uses tons of metaphors, similes, symbolism, and imagery to emphasize the importance of “writing” your own “story” and not someone else’s.
The whole song is a conceit comparing an “unwritten book” to a life being lived to the fullest. She starts the song with her life being “unwritten” which represented her life being “unplanned” and not influenced by other people’s opinions and choices. In life, she says you have a “pen in your hand” which symbolizes that you are creating your own future and not anyone else. She also conveys this point by the repetition of “no one else” in the chorus, to show the importance of YOU making your own choices. By doing this, you will be living life to the fullest. Just like your life, the unwritten book has “blank pages” which symbolize a person’s future being unknown and undetermined. This book cannot be prewritten. She then follows up these symbols with imagery of “opening up a dirty window, letting the sun illuminate the words that you cannot find.” This imagery emphasizes the listeners to try new things and make mistakes. She believes that by doing this, we can find things we love and live life to the fullest. This imagery continues with “feel the rain on your skin” which expresses the accomplishments you can achieve in life if you take risks and live your own life. She also emphasizes that taking risks is important because it lets oneself “live their life with arms wide open.” This idiom doesn’t actually mean to go around hugging people - despite our world lacks compassion towards each other, so this suggestion could help fix that problem - but it means to be open to try new things, be open to suggestions, and to meet new people. She believes that one can achieve this at any moment because “today is where one’s book begins” so it’s never too late to start taking risks to live life to the fullest. Many people don’t take risks due to not wanting to go “outside the lines.” The “lines” symbolize society’s rules with “condition” us to act and appear a certain way to everyone around us. According to Bedingfield, this prevents us from living like to the fullest, and the only way to is by going past them and making mistakes.
I relate to this song due to a personal experience. In high school, I started taking risks that I never thought I would when I was younger. In the past, the people around me - including my family- were very doubtful of my interests in academics, especially science. With this doubt on my shoulders, I didn’t bother signing up for science clubs or being around science nerds; however, in high school I decided to make my life “unwritten” and take the risk of signing up for advanced STEM classes and research. This was probably the best decision I made in high school: ever since I signed up, I had most wonderful opportunities in exploring different fields and people. This is my third year doing this, and I was able combine my interests from when I was a child – art -- to the subjects I enjoy now. This song has definitely helped me start writing my own “book” with the “pen in my hands.” I look at “blank pages” and think of the wonderful risks I will take to live life to the fullest.
The overall purpose of this song was to emphasize the importance of living life to the fullest and how to get people to do this. This song has inspired many people around the world to start to make their “books” “unwritten”. In Bedingfield’s personal experience, she would always be put down by the things other people said about her singing; however, she took the risk and started singing and making her own music. This risk has made her the accomplished singer we know today.
The Song: "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield
