Looking at our reading schedule for this week, I didn't expect to be learning through the lens of a postmodern comic strip. I have to say it was a different way of looking at rhetoric at its most fundamental and it took me a little while to become comfortable with. That being said, I think these chapters made a number of interesting points, some more prevalent than others.
I liked the idea that words are abstract icons (chapter 2). When we see a word, we are taken to some image we have in our head pertaining to its meaning. Now, I struggled with this at first because I thought about reading a novel or other form of dense text and can't say that I have an image of every word I read. Basic conjunctions, adjectives and adverbs to name a few. I suppose there is some image ingrained into my neurological workings that is activated subconsciously when reading these words, but I cannot think of a specific example of say the word "slowly" without comparing it to something else. I think of a person walking down a sidewalk at a slow pace. Perhaps this is the icon stored within my mind, or maybe it is something else. I thought this an engaging theory. Other than the minority of the population who are blind, we most commonly identify with symbols and images. That brings up another discussion. What is an image to the blind if they have never been able to see anything? I would imagine they still identify with objects and people based on some sort of memory, having to rely on their other senses. Is a smell or sound an image? I wonder.
I understood the point McCloud was trying to make by breaking down an image to its most basic, but I can't say this is always the most plausible way to go about simplifying the meaning and locating the central idea. Sure a simple stick drawing will be enough for me to identify it as a person, animal, or whatever it may be, but I think such a loss of description lessens the greater meaning of an image or drawing. A stick figure shows us how we can generally identify, but a meticulous painting will do the same and open the door to other ideas that only such detail could uncover. Maybe I read into this too much, but I like detail. In my art and in my writing.
Chapter 4 was a little more difficult for me to follow. I liked McCloud's idea of sound creating conversation, acting as its own character in everyday narrative. Without the sound of the bulb flashing, the family's string of responses would not have been. Such a prompt was essential to this mini story. The sound took the place of what would have been someone asking the group a question or making some sort of statement. I thought this an interesting companion to the idea brought up in class of what writing really is and how it can be seen in different ways. I didn't get the shift from sound to McCloud's idea of panels suggesting time. I guess it was another example of how time can be manipulated, but I didn't care for the side by side placement. Sure, how a person views something is everything. Formatting is one tool to influence what a reader takes away from the piece. I guess I just needed a little more explanation of the time aspect of this chapter.
I felt like the last chapter should have come before all the rest. The quick history of the shift from images to words in our learning process would have been a good way to set the other chapters up. I remember being Tommy with his toy at one point, not knowing what each thing was doing or how to describe it. I think this chapter helped me to understand why it was so hard for me to read the rest. I haven't read a book with pictures for years, especially one that was trying to make some sort of intellectual point. It was really hard for me to follow what was being said in what order, I had to remember how to read a comic, but still found myself going back a number of panels to understand. I guess this says a lot about how we learn to read text and what imagery does for a reader or author's understanding of the words. It's much more intrinsic than any of us think.
After reading chapter 2, I was surfing the web and found an interesting article called "How Do Blind People Picture Reality?" I was surprised to learn they see things very similarly to you and me.
http://www.livescience.com/23709-blind-people-picture-reality.html
Hey Kirk, your post brought up a lot of questions for me.Right off the bat, you bring up the idea that pictures and maybe symbols, come before our language. If this is so, then we are defined by our senses, and then we later get meaning through our senses to define the world. This makes sense to me, and we learn language through our senses, for example, like touch, finding out that a stove is hot, and finding the word that describes that sensation. Yet, when we enter into the realm of identity and virtue (meaning) we seem to pass outside the bounds of the normal five senses.
ReplyDeleteIn my post, I put that this is what the rhetorician, Quintilian, described as making us human and unique among the other species. To describe this place, we need another sense, and I think have another sense, something like a sense of identity, or an inner conscience, that watches the workings of our mind. If this is the definition of humanity, according to guys like Quintilian, and if language is the best way to understand our mind, then it seems to follow that writing is the ultimate definition for this sense, and the tool we most like to use. And if we are the only animal that writes, it seems to follow that writing is man-made, created through our language with its highest function in the abstract. Painting's highest function to me seems to be the imitation of reality. The most beautiful and timeless art seems to be the ones that allow us to get out of our minds and take us back in wonder, rather than taking is into our minds and think. But that is my own perception, and I'm sure there are others who would say that a painting's highest function should have meaning, just like good writing.
Anways, what I'm trying to say is that I think the highest function of each lie completely in different senses and serve different purposes entirely. I can't imagine, and don't want to, try and make meaning out of great works of art, just like I don't want to see a picture of an abstract idea, that is unique to my interpretation and identity.It is like when you read a really good book series, for me the Dark Tower series, and have a picture of that person based on their qualities and way of being, and then a movie is made, or a picture is made, that is not in accordance with your image. Our mind is then forever changed by that picture and we have someone else's idea stuck in our head, instead of our own. If you have ever read the Dark Tower series I would really like to know what your interpretation of the pictures in the books is.
I never really thought about how our senses shape the reality we live in and, most notably, its description to what you called "man made" writing. The massive amount of sensory experiences we had before we learned how to write--in its most basic terms--have ingrained in us what we know of our world. Aside from the differentiation between text and image, I think it is essential to note sight and touch are not the only senses required to compose text or create an image. Writing is one of our most primary communicative abilities, and would not be so without the shared capacities of our human senses.
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