First College Rhetoric Paper...
Thrown Like Stones
I want you to look at the picture that I am about to show first, refrain from reading the quote until you see the entire picture.
“Mankind flung its advance agents over outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones. These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on earth- a nightmare of meaningless without end. The boundaries of space, of infinite outwardness, were three; empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.”
When reading this quote many people start to question what is being said and that still remains a challenge for most. To try and better understand this quote you need to know who wrote it. The author of this quote is a great American thinker named Kurt Vonnegut, who happens to be my favorite author of all time. In his writing he invokes many postmodern ideas, some irony and even comedy. In my opinion it would be a tragedy to even consider questioning the creditability of such a prestigious author.
This picture that was taken by an unknown author is quite an amazing image prior to the flawless Vonnegut quote found and placed on the top. Apart these are just two ordinary texts, but together they seem to compliment each other in a very interesting way. These together have a very powerful message attached to it. The picture itself seems to be showing, how extraordinary the event was, not only to the people witnessing it, but to all of mankind. Then as you finally have come to the conclusion that this was an extremely good thing that happened to us, your eyes gravitate to the quote. Then you ideas about this event come crashing down with every line you read. This is what makes this so great.
What is so great about this combination of quote and picture is that there are very clear arguments being brought about in both of them. As you look into the picture, again, you seem to get the idea that this is the best thing that has ever happened to us as humans, then you read the quote and it completely contradicts the picture and gives almost a sense of loneliness, or solitude. It’s quite amazing to me that if you were to remove the quote your feelings at the end of analyzing it would be completely different.
The trait that both of these of these pieces have in common is tone. As you read the text you start to feel almost sad, or lonely, a kind of a feeling that you cant quite change anything that is happening. Its seems to be a very emotionally charged quote. Then again looking at this picture of this magnificent site seems to be as well to have an inferior tone. Don’t get me wrong this is an amazing work of photography, but makes you start to really think. Starts to make you really feel smaller than you could ever imagine.
The style of Kurt’s quotes seems to be very similar to all his writing. He seems to have kind of a somber tone, and uses very unique but educated diction. He is one of the authors where you can tell you are reading him simply by his writing voice.
The viewers of this combination of quote and picture will have quite a good time thinking about this one. There will be two different audiences for this piece. The audience for the quote will be far less abundant, would be an audience full of Kurt Vonnegut readers and maybe some others. The picture on the other case would have a much wider fan base. This could attract people interested in space, or just great works of photography. With the combination of these two pieces it touches on all of Kurt Vonnegut writing styles. I feel like this was intentional and the point of the combination. Only a Vonnegut fan could be capable of that.
This combination was found a slide show full of Kurt Vonnegut’s artwork, and fans making tributes to all of his work. This is definite clue to how the creator of the piece was thinking. He obliviously was aware of Kurt’s writing styles and put them to great use.
After running a through analyst of these two pieces, we can safely conclude that the combination of the two makes this picture what it is. With only one or the other it would simply be not as good of a picture. There is two distinct different tones and combined they work for each other. The unknown creator of this combination knew exactly what they were doing when they took Kurt’s postmodern view and coupled it with an extraordinary picture.
One last time take one more look at this picture and then read the quote. Think about all that was talked about. Think about everything, think about how this makes you feel, think what a perfect combination these two pieces makes.
On a final note think about all that this has taught you, and it has made you feel. Remember that there are always two sides of the story, and even if the first one makes sense look closer at the other one. Don’t take things too lightly, but don’t forget how small you really are. Oh, and go read some more Kurt Vonnegut. :)
