Use Of Imagery In Gordon Parks Flavio's Home

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When you hear about Brazil, what comes to your mind first? The Amazon rainforest? The Christ Redeemer statue? Soccer? Carnival? What about the 16 million Brazilians living in poverty? In Gordon Parks’ “Flavio’s Home”, the Life magazine article centers around the poverty-stricken da Silva family who reside in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy, Flavio, and his misadventures as he and his family face poverty. Parks describes poverty as “savage”, it “claims victims”, and it “spreads like a cancer”. Notice what “savage”, “victims”, and “cancer” all have in common? Among these words, they arouse a feeling of pity or sadness within the reader. These words drive the reader to think about possible ways to help alleviate …show more content…

He begins by describing the despicable surroundings of the da Silvas and the community they inhabit. He tells of “open sewers”, “stench of rotting things”, “slime-filled holes”, “squalid”, “mazes of shacks”, and how the doctor’s office was made up of “wailing of hunger and hurt”. Parks’ imagery is essential because if he wouldn’t have taken into account the environment surrounding him, then the reader wouldn’t have any idea what was happening, how it was happening, and how it was affecting the people involved within that population. This would make the reader question what exactly the author wants them to do. His intricate detail gives the reader something to chew on and ponder about. Lastly, spritzes of personification drifted alongside Parks’ scrupulous imagery without fail. “Bare feet and legs with open sores climbed above us…”, “pitiful shack…” “his body sagging from exhaustion.”, “Garbage and human excrement clogged the open sewers…”, “Christ with arms extended, its back turned against the slopes of the Catacumba.” “...alongside the beach stood the gleaming white homes of the rich.” The author’s usage of personification set a contrast between the slums in which Flavio and his family occupied, and what Flavio yearned for within himself, the other side of

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