The idea of distinctively visual – to grasp an idea based on visualising images from words – is to portray points in a society or about something big plays a role in the community whether we realize it or not. The play ‘Shoe-horn Sonata’ by John Misto and the short-animated film ‘Overcomer’ by Spangler Scribbles both portray a certain point in either a large event like WWII or a series of personal events like life. In both the play and the short film there are either pictures/still memories or a series of words that portray a thought or a symbol of some kind. ‘Shoe-horn Sonata’ looks at the perspective of two female POW’s who were part of the Japanese WWII camps that claimed a lot of lives. There the girls found friendship and peace with one …show more content…
another. ‘Overcomer’ looks at the view point of a female teenager who has lost friends and become ‘chained up’ through her childhood. The past can be a dangerous truth that one doesn’t want to or need to hear.
In Act, I, Scene VIII of ‘Shoe-horn Sonata’ by John Misto, Bridie and Sheila are in a motel room where Sheila tosses Bridie’s Shoe-horn on the bed. The Shoe-horn symbolizes the past as Bridie thought that Sheila has traded it for quinine tablets but asks Sheila for the truth about the past. The past that neither ladies wanted to talk about; the final camp that they were put in that almost killed Bridie. Sheila tells of the torture that she went through for Bridie at Belalau. When Bridie was sick with cerebral malaria, Sheila took their tobacco tin, their hanky, and Bridies “…rotten bloody shoe-horn.” – which to Bridie meant her family as it was the last thing that her father gave to her – To Lipstick Larry who was always smiling at Sheila. Sheila wanted the medical supplies to take care of Bridie so when Lipstick Larry asked Sheila to sing for the men, she did thinking that if she could get grown men to cry that they wouldn’t take her. At this point, Bridie is in horror of the revelation and shocked that Sheila ‘slept with the Jap’s’ – as was the terms used in the play. With the past unveiled and the truth finally told, the waters of their friendship have been tested and tried. The past is a dangerous memory to …show more content…
explore. The past can sometimes be a new starting point for a better future. ‘Overcomer’ – by Spangler Scribbles – explores this idea in the detail of a teenager of whose 18th birthday is that day and as for looks on social media for any posts wishing her a happy birthday and finds one. She explores the past as she falls asleep after looking at the only post that she could find wishing her a happy birthday. The opening scene starts with her closing her screen and putting herself down. Later when she is in bed we see her looking at her phone on Instagram and continuing to self-doubt herself. She finds a post about her other ‘friends’ who haven’t a clue that it is her birthday and thinks that she isn’t wanted. She then finds a post that is directed to her saying happy birthday. She then falls asleep and ‘dreams’ of her past self who then shows older her the past and why she feels so ‘chained up’. The past for her wasn’t nice, being told that she wasn’t talented, that she was ugly, that she was not good enough, a failure, worthless and unsociable. After that we then see her younger self ‘chained up’ and her older self-saying that she matters. This opens her heart and minds more to be able to take a different viewpoint on life. By remembering her past, she wants to create a better future for herself, a future where she matters. In both the play and the animated film, the truth was told in a way that some people could relate.
In Act, I, scene VIII of ‘Shoe-Horn Sonata’, the way that people could relate to Bridie’s and Sheila’s experience would be if someone you cared about was on their death bed. This portrays distinctively visual by placing mental images in the readers/watcher’s minds and makes them think of the torture that Sheila went through to help Bridie to survive the illness. In ‘Overcomer’, distinctively visual is portrayed in a way that most people have been through at least one time in their life. The ‘chains’ that weighed her down and negative comments that she remembers portray a visual in the mind of the watcher as they connect through the past or current experiences that they might be or have experienced in their life. Distinctively visual is a way that people put things in their mind to make sense of and portray the world around them. It puts people in the mindset of others and their views as well as their own. The truth about the past can either lead to a better future or it can be dangerous waters depending on the
situation. The truth can either hurt or it can heal. Distinctively visual connects the target audience in mind and in feeling. John Misto and Spangler Scribbles both connected real-time issues with their play/animation and this brings people together in different ways. The effectiveness of the images is great as the audience feels how the other does.
Authors use many different types of imagery in order to better portray their point of view to a reader. This imagery can depict many different things and often enhances the reader’s ability to picture what is occurring in a literary work, and therefore is more able to connect to the writing. An example of imagery used to enhance the quality of a story can be found in Leyvik Yehoash’s poem “Lynching.” In this poem, the imagery that repeatably appears is related to the body of the person who was lynched, and the various ways to describe different parts of his person. The repetition of these description serves as a textual echo, and the variation in description over the course of the poem helps to portray the events that occurred and their importance from the author to the reader. The repeated anatomic imagery and vivid description of various body parts is a textual echo used by Leyvik Yehoash and helps make his poem more powerful and effective for the reader and expand on its message about the hardship for African Americans living
Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans”, Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem”, and John Donne’s “Song” all demonstrate excellent use of imagery in their writing. All of the authors did a very good job at illustrating how the use of imagery helps the reader understand what the author’s message is. However, some of the poems use different poetic devices and different tones. In Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans” and Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, both poems display a good use of personification. However in John Donne’s “Song” and John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem, they differ in the fact that the tone used in each poem contrasts from each other.
“ The horizon was the color of milk. Cold and fresh. Poured out among the bodies” (Zusak 175). The device is used in the evidence of the quote by using descriptives words that create a mental image. The text gives the reader that opportunity to use their senses when reading the story. “Somehow, between the sadness and loss, Max Vandenburg, who was now a teenager with hard hands, blackened eyes, and a sore tooth, was also a little disappointed” (Zusak 188). This quote demonstrates how the author uses descriptive words to create a mental image which gives the text more of an appeal to the reader's sense such as vision. “She could see his face now, in the tired light. His mouth was open and his skin was the color of eggshells. Whisker coated his jaw and chin, and his ears were hard and flat. He had a small but misshapen nose” (Zusak 201). The quotes allows the reader to visualize what the characters facial features looked like through the use of descriptive words. Imagery helps bring the story to life and to make the text more exciting. The reader's senses can be used to determine the observations that the author is making about its characters. The literary device changes the text by letting the reader interact with the text by using their observation skills. The author is using imagery by creating images that engages the reader to know exactly what's going on in the story which allows them to
Schirato, T. and Webb, J. (2004). Reading the visual. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
A good example of imagery can be found at the end of the story in the last paragraph. For this part of imagery, the main character Jackson Jackson has received his grandmother’s regalia from the pawn shop employee without having to pay the total of $999 he originally had to pay. (Alexie) “I took my grandmother’s regalia and walked outside. I knew that solitary yellow bead was part of me. I knew I was that yellow bead in part. Outside, I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s regalia and breathed her in. I stepped off the sidewalk and into the intersection. Pedestrians stopped. Cars stopped. The city stopped. They all watched me dance with my grandmother. I was my grandmother, dancing.” This statement made at the end of the story indicates a strong sense of imagery that details Jackson’s emotions towards getting his grandmother’s regalia from the pawn shop. The yellow bead he mentions was his strongest symbol of feeling toward his grandmother, feeling as if he were a part of that yellow bead, in this case, his grandmother. Jackson describes in more detail of how he felt more like his grandmother after he wrapped the regalia around him. The pedestrians, city, everything around him was watching him feel like his grandmother, like some sort of flashback he could be
By 1945 over 6 million Jews were killed as a result of the genocide launched by Nazi Germany. The Holocaust has been documented and depicted by various visual images revealing the atrocities of this tragic period. The film posters of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful produced in 1997 and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List produced in 1993 utilize various rhetorical appeals to present starkly different visual arguments about the Holocaust. For the purpose of this rhetorical analysis, viewing these images from the standpoint of a viewer who is exposed to these posters for the first time, with the acute knowledge that these posters are related to the holocaust is necessary. From this standpoint, it is clear to see how images that depict that
Piper’s use of imagery in this way gives the opportunity for the reader to experience “first hand” the power of words, and inspires the reader to be free from the fear of writing.
A pattern of repeated words or phrases can have a significant impact in conveying a particular impression about a character or situation, or the theme of a story. In the story "The Storm," by Kate Chopin, and "The Chrysanthemums," by John Steinbeck, imagery is an integral element in the development of the characters and situation, as well as the development of theme.
Readers can connect and identify with the story quickly through the verisimilitude that Joan MacLeod creates throughout the story. The descriptions that she uses to create images in the minds of the readers are probably very close to what most people had while growing up. It creates emotions in readers because the story relates so often to what is heard and seen in media everyday all over ...
Throughout the story, Walker uses brilliant imagery in describing each detail of what the mother sees through the eyes of her world. This imagery in turn creates a more interesting and imaginative story, and allows the reader to experience what the narrator is experiencing. The theme of imagery is not within the story, but how the story is told. However, the theme of love of one's family heritage is within the heart and not on the wall.
The concept of the uncanny can be a difficult one to comprehend; this is why Freud begins his essay with an analysis of the different definitions of the uncanny in various languages. Ultimately Freud rests that the German terms “heimlich” and “unheimlich” best match the definition of the uncanny because it is translated as familiar and unfamiliar. The uncanny can be defined as something that creates a feeling of familiarity but also unfamiliarity, and this unfamiliarity is what is fearful to the individual. Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” can be related to the field of literary criticism because he explains how the feeling of the uncanny relates to the author’s attempt to convey a certain response from their audience. This type of analysis bridges Freud’s work and Larsen’s novel in order to re-examine and debate certain moments in Passing that after a second look can be defined as uncanny. Passing is a short novel that centers on two mixed women who reunite in their adult lives and describe how they are trying to “pass” as white to society. Clare’s motive for passing is so that she can live a luxurious life with her white husband who is extremely racist. Whereas Irene is trying to pass when she goes out in society, her husband Brian is fully aware and is a black doctor. Irene and Clare’s childhoods and pasts are vague which allows there to be room for psychoanalysis, particularly with the character Irene and her feelings towards Clare. Through psychoanalytical criticism of the uncanny moments that occur in Larsen’s novel Passing build tension between Irene and Clare and it is argued that Irene pushed Clare from the window that caused her death in order for Irene to keep her secure life with her husband.
The victims of the Holocaust lose sight of who they are during this time and begin to live their life by playing a part they believe they were because of their race. Loman discussed the irony behind the cat-and-mouse metaphor that Spiegelman uses in his graphic novel in his article titled “’Well Intended Liberal Slop’: Allegories of Race in Spiegelman’s Maus”. In his article he states,
Reading words off an image requires extra work of visualizing the events when one can simply glance at pictures and automatically acknowledge what the story is about. Marjane emotionally describes the war, “When I think we could have avoided it all… it just makes me sick that a million people would still be alive” (Satrapi 116). If one could decipher what these words meant, they would not be able to comprehend the concept because people would not know what represent “it” in the statement. Images of warfare are easily comprehended than described in words. With the topics of warfare, a visual aid of a thousand words is likely to have a much stronger impact to those reading the
An author can reveal characteristics of characters in literature through several different methods. Some common methods of characterization include one’s appearance, speech, thoughts, name, actions, and emotions. However, unconventional means can also be used, such as imagery, which is visually descriptive or figurative language. In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, imagery is used to characterize central characters to the play. Firstly, Hamlet’s characteristics are revealed through the imagery of death in his speech. Secondly, Claudius’ characteristics are revealed through the imagery in the Ghost and Hamlet’s descriptions of him, as well as his own thoughts. It is through this visually descriptive and figurative language, that readers can identify characteristics of these central characters.
The use of multiple images to propel a narrative allows the audience to learn something through the characters that are there. Bloomer (1990)’s study on visual perception also draws upon Newton (1998)’s concern, as he explores the multiple perspectives and views of the event. By using a series of images, the characters mood and tone can be established throughout different elements of what we see. This may be the people, the place itself or the items within the place. By having a narrative of photographs, the audience has an even deeper understanding of the reality of that moment or event as they see more than just the ‘big picture’ as