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Compare and contrast claudia rankine citizen
Compare and contrast claudia rankine citizen
Compare and contrast claudia rankine citizen
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As little kids when our parents would read to us, we sat there listening and staring at the pictures. We relied on the illustrations to guide us through the story and to help us understand what was going on in the story. Images have been able to tell stories that words can describe throughout the development of human life. There are many different kinds of art that can be used in different ways and can act in different relationships with writing. Although many books rely on images to get the point across, the book Citizen uses images in a different way which forces the readers to look again until they notice. In the lyric, Citizen by Claudia Rankine, the images and the text perform differently by asking the reader to rethink either the image or the text. Because the texts and the images complement each other, readers …show more content…
Without the images placed throughout the lyric, readers would not be able to gain as deep of an understanding of the circumstances described in the text and some connections might go unnoticed. For example, as we first begin the book, Claudia Rankine describes a situation occurring in a school. A girl is cheating off of the girl infront of her. Sister Evelyn does not do anything about it as far as we know. We read that possibly Sister Evelyn ““never actually saw you sitting there.” (6) This quote shows that the cheating incidence goes unnoticed because she does not pay attention to the student sitting in the front. Rankine also includes a part about a route in this section and says, “The route is often associative” (5). After reading this, readers may not know exactly what the route is. Is it the route to school? The route from the student’s locker to her desk? On the next page we get a picture of a neighborhood with a street sign labeled “Jim
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
“ 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
From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of
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.
Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other
... is the most important line in the poem. I think the author used personification here to make the image clearer to the reader, and help them make the connection from the line to life. The line gives the idea that the author has had to overcome his own struggles in life, and is describing how it felt in this poem.
The symbols that stand out to understand the central concern of the poem are the camera, the photograph of the narrator and the photograph of the narrator’s grandmother. The camera symbolizes the time that has passed between the generations of the grandmother and the narrator. It acts as a witness of the past and the present after taking the photos of the narrator in the bikini and the grandmother in the dress. Her grandmother is wearing a “cotton meal-sack dress” (l. 17), showing very little skin exposure, representing
Since its emergence over 30,000 years ago, one of visual art’s main purposes has been to act as an instrument of personal expression and catharsis. Through the mastery of paint, pencil, clay, and other mediums, artists can articulate and make sense of their current situation or past experiences, by portraying their complex, abstract emotions in a concrete form. The act of creation gives the artist a feeling of authority or control over these situations and emotions. Seen in the work of Michelangelo, Frida Kahlo, Jean Michel-Basquiat, and others, artists’ cathartic use of visual art is universal, giving it symbolic value in literature. In Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,
Imagery is made up of the five senses, which are sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The first sense of sight is seen throughout the whole poem, specifically in the first two lines, “I had the idea of sitting still/while others rushed by.” This sight she envisions is so calm and still and the perfect example of appreciating the little things that life has to offer. Through the use of these terse statements, she allows it to have more meaning than some novels do as a whole.
Humans have used art for centuries as a response to their environments. The use of icons, perspective, and cubism have all reflected the cultures and societies of those times. However, art has often been mistaken as a substitution or creation of reality, rather than a reflection. John Gardner has taken up this attitude in his novel Grendel. While Grendel is a provocative and innovative work, John Gardner's views on art, as reflected in Grendel, are based upon a misunderstanding of art and are therefore unfounded.
Though people can look into color and composition, others can still even look into the source of the art itself. Cole goes deeper, delving into the source of the art, looking in particular into the idea of cultural appropriation and the view a person can give others. Though it is good for people to be exposed to different opinions of a group or an object, sometimes people can find it difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the art itself. Sometimes art can be so powerful that its message stays and impacts its audience to the point where the viewer’s image of the subject of the art changes entirely. Cole brings up an important question about art, however. Art has become some kind of media for spreading awareness and even wisdom at times, but in reality, “there is also the question of what the photograph is for, what role it plays within the economic circulation of images” (973). Cole might even be implying that Nussbaum’s advertisement can sometimes be the point of some media, and that sometimes the different genres of art can just be to make someone with a particular interest happy. One more point that Cole makes is that “[a]rt is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.” (974) Truthfully, awareness and other like-concepts are difficult to keep going when a person or a group is not directly involved.
The visual description of a text is the perfect way to wrap the reader’s senses into the story.
The speaker in the poem uses images to help to support the theme. For example the statement that "sometimes the woman borrowed my grandmother's face" displays the inability of the children to relate the dilemma to themselves, something that the speaker has learned later on with time and experience. In this poem, the speaker is an old woman, and she places a high emphasis on the burden of years from which she speaks by saying "old woman, / or nearly so, myself." "I know now that woman / and painting and season are almost one / and all beyond saving by children." clearly states that the poem is not written for the amusement of children but somebody that has reached the speaker's age, thus supporting the idea of the theme that children cannot help or understand her or anybody of her age. In addition, when the speakers describes the kids in the classroom as "restless on hard chairs" and "caring little for picture or old age" we can picture them in our minds sitting, ready to leave the class as soon as possible, unwilling and unable to understand the ethics dilemma or what the speaker is feeling.
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
"A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment.