All That Glitters Is Gold

All That Glitters Is Gold

All That Glitters is Gold
When one first looks at Figures 3.3 and 3.4 (Alfano and O'Brien, 48) , photos of a migrant family taken by Dorothea Lange , it wouldn’t be absurd for them to assume that the photos are meant to convey a message of sorrow and desperation; however when one looks closely, it becomes obvious that the images carry a message of hope and the promise of a bright future by using strong contrast and prominent symbolism.
In figure 3.3(Alfano and O'Brien, 48) the first thing one notices is that there is a single woman in the foreground bathed in light while the other four individuals hide in the shadows of the shanty, the light of course represents a new hope and beginning, while the darkness represents her tumultuous past, the people within the shanty being that which has held her back draining from her youth and resources, yet beckoning her to come back, holding her and using her sympathies against her, they might also indicate addictions of some kind, things she wishes she could leave but couldn’t quite leave until now. The shanty represents the flimsy box she has put herself in that has limited her, the place where she kept all the bad things in life that held her back from moving into the light and achieving her dreams, as indicated by the thin rope tying down the shanty and all those within. But she has freed herself from the darkness and the shanty becoming unbound by her own will, moving into the light, but the act of relinquishing one’s own mental limitations is not easy, it is difficult and exhausting which is why she has braced herself against a chair before venturing into her new world of light and hope to achieve that which she never could before due to the small dark box filled with negative thoughts and low expectations she had made for herself, but she is now free, free to experience all that the wonderful bright world around her has to offer, as indicated by the direction she is looking in and the expression on her face, she...

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