TOW #13: "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King, Jr.

     "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King, Jr. is undoubtedly one of the most important speeches in American history. King delivered this speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in the prime of the Civil Rights Movement in order to encourage his audience—every single American—to take a stand against the injustice against colored people. King is a well-known American Civil Rights activist, clergyman, and humanitarian. He effectively achieves his purpose with his use of powerful imagery and allusions.

     King's powerful imagery helps him achieve his purpose because with the imagery comes a sense of disappointment toward American society which underscores how American values really had not come a long way since Abraham Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Touching on this issue, King states, "One hundred years later, the life of the negro is sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the negro lives on the lonely island of poverty in the vast ocean of material prosperity" (para. 3). These images portray segregation as manacles and discrimination as chains, further identifying colored people as restricted and powerless against the injustice that conquers them. He additionally describes poverty as an island in an ocean of material prosperity, signaling that there is no way out.

    King alludes to not only historical events but also American patriotic songs. Toward the end of his speech, he emphasizes the irony in the popular song "My Country 'Tis of Thee" by stating that the lyrics cannot really be true until African Americans are "set free." He then brings up the idea of America as one whole united country when he continues the song. He says that freedom should ring from the "prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire" and the "mighty mountains of New York" and the "heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania" but also the "Stone Mountain of Georgia" and the "Lookout Mountain of Tennessee" and from "every hill and molehill of Mississippi."

I Have a Dream

(Picture and speech source: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm)

TOW #12: "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls (Part 1)

     The first half of The Glass Castle consists primarily of Jeannette Walls's travels through the southwestern United States as a child and how it shaped her view on childhood. Growing up without a secure home, Walls found herself in a new town almost every week, which is what makes up the bulk of the book. Through the stories of her journey, Walls appeals to her audience made up of people who grew up with an ordinary childhood and achieves her purpose of effectively illustrating her thoughts as a child growing up with her unstable family in her memoir with the help of vivid imagery.
     Walls begins her memoir with a story about how when she was three years-old, she was once left unattended at the stove when making hot dogs. This detail would appall her readers, since many of them are not used to the idea of a very young girl cooking hot dogs alone. She continued her story by adding that her dress caught on fire and she ended up in the hospital with severe burns. After such a traumatic event, one might believe that the child would grow up to have a fear with fire. This was different in Walls's case: she became fascinated with it. She ponders this fascination when she writes, "I loved the scratching sound of the match against the sandpapery brown strip when I struck it, and the way the flame leaped out of the red-coated tip with a pop and a hiss. I'd feel its heat near my fingertips, then held my breath until the moment when they seemed about to blaze up out of control" (15). Through this use of imagery, Walls effectively conjures up the feelings of excitement and curiosity she felt as a child when playing with fire, therefore achieving her purpose of portraying her thoughts as a child with an unusual home life.
     Walls is credible because The Glass Castle is the story about her own life. Her aforementioned use of imagery also strengthens her credibility because it aids her in depicting the thoughts and ideas that she had as a child. Jeanette Walls achieves her purpose of characterizing herself as a child and therefore describing for her audience an unusual childhood in The Glass Castle with her use of stirring imagery.

TOW #11: "The Scream" by Edvard Munch (Visual Text)

     Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's The Scream is likely one of the most iconic pieces of art in history. With its striking color scheme and macabre depictions, The Scream immediately stood out from the rest of the impressionist works completed in the late 19th century. When Munch was asked to describe the setting of his work he replied, "I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature." This makes it clear that Munch's purpose in creating this painting was to not only depict the remarkable sunset he saw that night but to also depict his inner feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and anger.
     Like most other artists, Munch personally struggled with feelings of mental illness; his own sister was in the hospital for instability during the time period of the painting. Some art historians have even noticed the mental hospital included behind the painting's subject, a genderless person staring straight and screaming the "infinite scream of nature" Munch had mentioned hearing. Since it is not clear whether the subject is a man or a woman, historians have concluded that it is actually a portrait of both Munch and his sister.
     Munch's color scheme and imagery completely help his in achieving his purpose. The crimson and scarlet streaks in the sky give the viewer a sense of panic and disorder; Munch's description of "tongues of fire and blood" further gives his audience a sense of violence. His subject's facial expression brings about the feelings of fear and confusion Munch and his sister had suffered with. Since Munch was actually a very popular artist at the time, he created his work knowing that it would be seen by the public. Because of its initially puzzling representation and ominous meaning, The Scream remains to be one of the most enigmatic pieces of artwork to this day.

Fun fact: Two different versions of The Scream have been stolen before by art thefts: one painted version was stolen from the National Gallery, Oslo in 1994, and another painted version was stolen in 2004 from the Munch Museum along with painting Madonna