Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [98]
MAKING AN INTERPRETATION: THE EXAMPLE OF A NEW YORKER COVER
A major point of this section is that interpretive contexts are suggested by the material you are studying; they aren’t simply imposed. Explaining why you think a subject should be seen through a particular interpretive “lens” is an important part of making interpretations reasonable and plausible. Our discussion illustrates a writer’s decisionmaking process in choosing an interpretive context and how, once that context has been selected, the writer goes about analyzing evidence to test as well as support the usefulness of that context.
The example on which we focus is a visual image, a cover from the New Yorker magazine (see Figure 6.2). The cover of the October 9, 2000 issue is by Ian Falconer and is entitled “The Competition.” To see the image in color, you can easily access it online by following these steps: (1) visit the New Yorker store website; (2) click on Browse by Artist; (3) choose Ian Falconer; and (4) page forward to October 9, 2000.
Producing a close description of anything you analyze is one of the best ways to begin because the act of describing causes you to notice more and triggers analytical thinking. Here is our description of the New Yorker cover:
The picture contains four women, visible from the waist up, standing in a row in semi-profile, staring out at some audience other than us, since their eyes look off to the side. All four gaze in the same direction. Each woman is dressed in a bathing suit and wears a banner draped over one shoulder in the manner of those worn in the swimsuit competition at beauty pageants. Three of the women are virtually identical. The banners worn by these three women show the letters gia, rnia, and rida, the remainder of the letters being cut off by the other women’s shoulders, so that we have to fill in the missing letters to see which state each woman represents.
The fourth woman, who stands third from the left in line, tucked in among the others who look very much alike, wears a banner reading york. This woman’s appearance is different in just about every respect from the other three. Whereas they are blonde with long flowing hair, she is dark with her hair up in a tight bun. Whereas their mouths are wide open, revealing a wall of very white teeth, her mouth is closed, lips drawn together. Whereas their eyes are wide open and staring, hers, like her mouth, are nearly closed, under deeply arched eyebrows.
The dark woman’s lips and eyes and hair are dark. She wears dark eye makeup and has a pronounced dark beauty mark on her cheek. Whereas the other three women’s cheeks are high and round, hers are sharply angular. The three blonde women wear one-piece bathing suits in a nondescript gray color. The dark-haired woman, whose skin stands out in stark contrast to her hair, wears a two-piece bathing suit, exposing her midriff. Like her face, the dark-haired woman’s breast, sticking out in half profile in her bathing suit, is pointed and angular. The other three women’s breasts are round and quietly contained in their high-necked gray bathing suits.
FIGURE 6.2 “The Competition” by Ian Falconer
Artwork by Ian Falconer/The New Yorker © 2000 Conde Naste Publications Inc.
Using the Method to Identify Patterns of Repetition and Contrast
As we discussed in Chapter 2, looking for patterns of repetition and contrast (aka The Method) is one of your best means of getting at the essential character of a subject. It will prevent you from generalizing, instead