In today’s media
news, it is hard to see an article that only contains texts, and it indicates
that there is a huge impact of images for an article. Images usually attract
readers firsthand at the front page of the news sites, and are used within the
articles to emphasize the importance of the subject of the article and to communicate
with readers. Those images can be illustrated as graphs or charts that provide
readers some detailed information of subject; pictures of the aftermaths of
wars or disasters that evoke readers’ pity for victims; abstractions or unclear
images that contain hidden meanings, which readers have to think further; and so
on. On the Opinion Pages of the New York Times, Phillip Lopate’s article “The
Essay, an Exercise in Doubt” can be found as an example of the third case of
use of images as a visual rhetoric that uses an interesting image to support the
argument.
Why do we write
an essay? What is its purpose? How does it affect its writers and readers? An
essay is a very familiar tool that people develop since they are young, but old
enough to write, and it becomes one of the essential duties as they grow up.
Maybe everyone in this world has written an essay at least once for their
lives. Or, it becomes a career path for some of them.
Phillip Lopate,
an essayist, illustrates that the essay is an exercise in doubt in his article.
This article is fairly straight forward and states that even though an essay is
not as popular as fictions or poetry, and it has been anticipated to have lower
sales, he still values the writing of an essay as a “feast on doubt” or a way
of “second-guessing [oneself]”. He keeps questioning himself and taking risks
as a “soundtrack” of his life and career in order to improve his writing
process. Therefore, he is disappointed by the change of the use of essays that
its characteristic of self-doubting or ambivalence is dramatically lost due to
the high competition among the colleges, because essays have become a tool of self-advertisement
for students to get into good colleges. He stresses that as an essayist, he is
always “monitoring [himself] for traces of folly, insensitivity, arrogance,
false humility, cruelty, stupidity, immaturity…” to think more critically and
write more intelligently. He also believes that this exercise of doubt is what
people have to “cultivate on [their] own, in private…in an essay” because it
not only impacts one’s writing skills, but also the daily life, which is more
complex than writing.
One unique takeaway
from this article, other than further thinking or debates on the topic of this
article, is that there is an animation of a table with an axe on one of its
legs chopping the other side of its leg off. Unlike other articles containing
one or more straight forward, simple pictures of objects that are discussed in
the article, a random animation of a table appears as a rhetorical image in the
middle of the article, and it is strange and odd enough for the readers to
think about for a moment. As a rhetorical image of the article, the animation
of a table communicates and expresses its own meaning to readers. The animation
is given without any specific caption to readers, and this can lead each reader
to different reactions. One may be stunned when one encounters it, or one may
be appreciated by its hidden meaning that one has to figure out like a puzzle. In
other words, the crazy table hurting itself has more things to say other than
its colors or motion. The motion of the animation not only easily attracts
readers’ attention immediately, but it also stops readers reading for a moment
and takes them into further thought process, such as questioning why the table
has an axe on it, or why it is chopping its leg off.
The animation of
self-chopping table is well used in this article along with author’s argument
of exercise in doubt, but the best place to put the animation down is very
vague for this particular article. Because this article is an essay that
contains some personal experiences, examples, and argument, it is not ideal to
place the image at the top of the article like other articles do, because
readers are not yet ready to examine for the suicidal table without any warnings.
Thus, depict it is not so perfectly fit for the flow of the article, the
placement of the animation is fairly adequate as a division of the article to
keep readers’ attention.
If we think
simply, it is easy to catch the author’s intention with his all of his argument
that is demonstrated previous paragraphs in the animation: the ambivalence.
Like the author is self-doubting which can lead him to confusion or disorder,
the table holds an axe, a weapon which can destroy itself. However, at the same
time, these potential harms can be flipped into the benefits that can sculpt a
masterful writing, or an artful table, if they are well organized.
So then, would
you want to write an essay or sculpt a status that is commonly found in public
area? Or, a masterpiece that is exclusively unique and bore from self-conflicts?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/the-essay-an-exercise-in-doubt/
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