Photo Analysis: Challenging the Canon of Adolescent Literature - Essay Example

Photo Analysis In the above photo, one can discern the image of a young black person seemingly attempting to wash an article of clothing in a very muddy, dirty creek. Nearby, another young person sits on the muddy bank, looking in the direction of the photographer. Despite the fact that this scene is occurring on the edge of a stream, there is very little vegetation apparent. A long dead tree limb seems to stretch across the streambed at approximately the children’s waist-height if they had been standing next to it. A few very straggly twigs seem to sprout in the background with meager leaves and indicating nothing offering any kind of sustenance to the children. The child doing the washing appears to be a girl, indicated by the style of dress worn, a striped skirt over a pair of leg-warming pants and a pink sweater, but the child has no hair to give a clue as to actual gender or if the child has simply adopted articles of clothing as a means of keeping warm. The desolation of the space the children occupy as well as the unfriendly-seeming nature of the murky water illustrates the lack of sustenance they are provided in their home. The photograph was taken by a traveling journalist working on a story about the desolation of Africa and its effect on its people. The clothing worn by the children could be said to be coordinated, but could also be said to be hodge-podge depending upon the view taken by the photographer. In ensuring only meager vegetation is included in the frame, the photographer provides the viewer with the impression that Africa has insufficient growing things to support the people who live there. The attempt to clean clothes in the muddy water highlights the hopelessness of the children’s situation. Just as the viewer is aware that nothing will ever become clean when rinsed in mud, so the connection is made that these children will never be properly cared for in a land that is incapable of providing for their needs, represented by the bare rocky bank. The image that it is a pair of young children at the streambed washing clothes indicates a world in which children do nothing but work to ensure their own survival and perhaps is intended to also suggest the devastation on families that the AIDS virus has had in removing parents from their children before the children are quite ready to fend for themselves. These children thus emerge as desolate in spirit and hope as the land seems desolate of drinkable water and vegetative food supplies. The clothes, given this setting, take on the aspect of donated items, particularly given their non-traditional styles, further indicating Africa’s dependence upon the exterior world as a means of effecting the survival of its people. This particular photograph is of particular significance because of the various ways in which it forces the viewer to think about Africa, as discussed above. The visual metaphors made regarding the barrenness of the land, the hopelessness of its peoples and the dependence of them upon the outer world for the necessary sustenance for survival continue through every aspect of the image within its given context. At the same time, though, it speaks of the resiliency of the people, of the continuing processes of nature that has kept these people sustained for centuries and the encroachment of the outer world that enforces a concept of poverty and lack. The children are fully clothed, indicated that they are not cold in the sunshine of the image. There are some green leaves in view within the image, indicating that growth here does occur, reinforced by the mere presence of the children at the stream-bank. The water may be muddy, but it is not clear that the child is attempting to wash the object in the water. This object could as easily be some kind of cloth bag intended to help strain the water of its dry season mud rendering it drinkable. This speaks of the resilience of the people who have learned how to live with the cycles of their land and how to sustain themselves appropriately. That these are children engaged in the work suggests they are far more capable than Western children of providing for their own survival needs while the somewhat sullen stare of the boy toward the camera suggests a resentment felt at the intrusion rather than the abandonment and hopelessness the photograph seems intent upon conveying. These multiple elements speaking on multiple levels as they do make the photograph meet the criteria for art that are outlined by Dorothy Allison. Allison’s views on the necessary criteria for art include the need for art to speak on a deep, spiritual level rather than attempting to demonstrate a pretty picture. Discussing Allison’s aesthetic views, writer Sonja Darlington (1996) suggests teachers encourage their students to study visual art as a means of gaining greater understanding of what is meant by this deeper spiritual meaning. “Visual artists who come to mind with such horrifyingly tense nightmares in their canvases might be Hieronymus Bosch or Anselm Kiefer. These painters’ works depict panoramic views of life that could be used to challenge students to consider the aesthetic qualities of art, particularly when art mirrors the horrors in society.” Essentially, Allison’s view holds that true art should reflect God, not just questions about him. While Allison holds that good art makes you think, only great art makes you think of God. As this relates to the above image, it can be quickly determined that the photographer was not attempting to capture an image of obvious beauty and pleasure. However, the image does cause the viewer to think about what is happening in the image and in the intentions of the photographer. As one begins to think deeper regarding the image seen in the photograph, though, one begins to think about the higher nature of humans, about their relationships to each other and about how their understandings are not quite equal to the greater understandings of God and his grand designs. Works Cited Darlington, Sonja R. “Challenging the Canon of Adolescent Literature: Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina.” The Alan Review. Vol. 24, N. 1, (Fall 1996). January 19, 2009 Read More