The illustrator shows the audience hints of symbolism, personification, and simple dialect through the understanding of the cartoon. One can infer that the two characters in this image are randomly selected just for laughs, however they have significance to the meaning, basically showing personification. A chicken represents a scared individual who typically refuses to participate in an activity that peers force them to do. Once they deny such a thing, many times they are called "chicken" for not joining their spontaneous and troublesome friends. The grim reaper, which is a symbol of death, tries to persuade the pressured chicken by saying that "everybody else is doing it." This is also a typical phrase used in situations like these. The dialect of these two are very direct and simple, easy to understand for any audience. People are able to easier interpret and analyze the visual because of the language.
Pertaining this to violence, we can see that the grim reaper is connected to death. The cartoon implies that peer pressure can often times lead to harmful experiences that can lead someone to their death. Whether it may be through words or actions, the effects can either way be a burden on someone innocent.
Here's the link to the visual! Enjoy! http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/03/peer-pressure.html
Savage, Doug. Peer Pressure. 2008. Graphic. Savage Chickens
I think this picture is great when relating to a college student. In college we are exposed to a whole new world with all kinds of temptation (drunking, drugs, etc.). If the friends we hangout with start drinking or doing drug, they will convince us to do the same and if we do not, we risk the chance of ridicule and being called "chickens". It is evident that those actions can lead to death and if we fall into those temptations, we run the risk, to an extreme extent, of dying also. Great job on the rhetorical analysis!
ReplyDeleteI think that you chose a good picture for this week's assignment. I usually don't think of violence in association with peer pressure. However, this picture is a good representation of the seriousness of what can happen if we allow ourselves to give into peer pressure. When most people think of the consequences of giving into peer pressure, we usually think of simply getting into trouble and being yelled at by our parents, but it's important to realize the consequences could be much graver.
ReplyDelete