Fernando Botero

I picked the 6th painting to analyze. What drew me to this painting was the expression on the prisoner's face. Although we cannot see his eyes, the horrible drawing-down of his mouth expresses everything that he is feeling: pain, dejection, degradation, humiliation. Almost as striking and haunting is the single, blue-gloved hand that come in on the left hand side, holding the leashes of the dogs. It represents the "separation of self" we talking about in class today; the disjointment of the hand from the prisoner represents the complete stripping of humanity the soldiers in Abu Ghraib must've put themselves through in order to commit such atrocities.
The background of the painting is very dark, depicting stark iron bars against an "abyss" of darkness behind the prisoner with a solitary half-window in the background. The lightness of the skin of the prison, along with the brightness of the blood pouring from his many wounds, bring the prisoner into the foreground, forcing the viewer to examine everything about him. The prisoner is simultaneously being bitten on the right knee and clawed on the chest by two large, ferocious dogs, while a third dog seems ready to pounce. The prisoner is leaning forward into the dog clawing him in the chest, which seems to show just how helpless he is; he has no idea where he is; the only thing he knows is pain.
Paintings, especially these paintings, are meant to invoke certain reactions and feelings within its audience. The artist has the right to manipulate what he sees into a message he wants to get across; a photographer has to do so with what is physically in front of him. These paintings provide a more horrible image of the Abu Ghraib prison tortures because of their cartoonish features. The prisoners are depicted as almost comically overweight, and they are so almost to the point where you want to laugh, but then you remember what you are looking at, and the horror of what you see hits you twice as hard.

BLOG HOLIDAY

Hey everyone,
This week I'm taking my blog holiday...just letting you guys know.
Have a good week!
Tyler

The Boondocks

Did you guys notice the difference in dialect between Granddad, Huey, and Riley and the New Orleaneans? You could hardly understand what Uncle Jericho and the rest of his family were saying, especially the oldest kid with the fro. It was interesting to see, because I am not black, therefore, I don't see the cultural differences between black people. There are definitely cultural differences that I see between white people, however, and that is one of my frames. My color and ethnicity determines what I see in people. In being exposed to just one example of the differences between two ethnicities other than my own, I am forced to broaden my horizons. For example, us white folk here in the North have preconceived notions about people in the South; that they are farmers and maybe not as intellectual as we are. The episode of the Boondocks we watched exposed us to the same type of difference that perhaps black people in the North have about black people from the South. It all comes down to frames. Each character represented a different frame people might view black people through: Riley was the stereotypical gangster; Huey was the activist; Granddad was the old curmudgeoney sarcastic black grandpa; Uncle Jericho was the laborer from the South; his mom was the Jesus-loving old black grandma. I feel like all these thoughts are just rushing around in my head and I can't figure out how to make them words...do you guys agree...or even get what I'm trying to say?

God, strippers and civil unrest

I was attracted to the two columns titled "God and Strippers" and "Civil Unrest." Chris Rose talked about a "return to normalcy" in both of these columns, but what struck me about them is that the signs of normalcy talked about were both negative aspects of life, so to speak: strippers and unrest within the community. Stripping for a living is widely regarded as a socially unacceptable way to make a living for women, and the sort of civil unrest described in Rose's column only sets the community back. In "Civil Unrest," the residents in the author's community were taking their smelly, dirty refrigerators and dumping them on the sidewalk after the cleaning crew had finally come through and straightened up the street. The other residents get angry, and some of them get revenge by bringing the fridges back to their respective owners and even blocking their driveways with them. At the end of the column on page 104, Rose says this:

                Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking: There are people in this town who lost everything. Their loved ones, their homes, their jobs, their pets, their precious photos and memories. And their refrigerators...You're thinking: You people didn't have the right to survive this storm...Maybe you're right...But consider this...Maybe this signals a return to normalcy, Maybe this is even a healthy sign of the human spirit.

I really liked this quote because it got me thinking. While I've been reading this book, I've been thinking that signs pointing toward normalcy for New Orleans would be the trash and debris being all gone, electricity starting to work again, people moving back. Those are signs of normalcy, but they don't encompass the human spirit. Humans have a nasty side too. Cleaning would've brought aesthetics back to New Orleans, but not the humanity. A combination of the good (people sweeping their front porches instead of cleaning crews pulling branches out of broken windows) and the ugly (fighting with one another over a smelly fridge) brings the humanity back.

In the other article, "God and Strippers," there is a similar quote on page 28. Rose says: "...a strip club opened up on Bourbon Street...and if that isn't one small step toward normalcy...then I don't know what is." Again, something that is considered in a negative light by society is bringing hope back to New Orleans and for the author. Debauchery and sin offer a signal of hope for the author, which is a kind of difficult image to comprehend, but I can chalk that down to frames. I was born and raised in New Hampshire, almost an entirely different world from New Orleans. There are no strip joints where I live. If one opened in my town, it would probably be a signal for despair, because I have been raised to stay away from places like those. It is a difficult image for me to comprehend that a strip joint can invoke that kind of hope in the author. 

These two examples of seemingly hopeless things causing hope to be instilled in the author is what drew me to both of them. Because I cannot experience something quite like this, it is interesting to think about. 

Hey! again

Hey everyone! This is Tyler Hixson and I'm from Hancock, NH. I went to high school at Conval (maybe you've heard of it but most likely you havent) and am now studying English Literature here at UNH. The reason I called this blog what I called it is that I feel in order to be a successful writer, one needs to constantly tap into the human psyche and know what their readers are thinking. In order to be a successful lit. student, one often has to tap into the author's mind and try and extract meaning from something superficially meaningless. I really like this blog idea/book group thing, so hopefully this will be a good semester!