Rhetorical Analysis of an Image: Child Abuse

Ajianna S. Claxton

English

Professor K. A. Harris

2 April 2014

Rhetorical Analysis of an Image: Child Abuse

When a child is abused or mistreated there is more then just broken bones or bruises. The abuse or mistreatment leaves behind mental and physical problems such as discouragement, anger, and dissociation. This image is about a child who has been mistreated horribly and is in need of an adult figure to show her the love and affection that a child will truly adore. This image was chosen to be a good because it can catch one’s attention and sympathy. It has different elements like its structure and text to express itself through pain, sorrow, depression and anxiety. In this image you will discover how the image is composed, the emotional problems, and the social issues within a child whose looks can inform that she has been hurt severely by analyzing the three different elements.

The child in the image suffers from pain, depression, hunger, anxiety, and a lot more. How do I know? The different textures in the lighting of the image such as the light shading around the child’s face, or foreground which consist of the multiple types of pain inside the text. The background is the dark shading around the outer areas of the image which consist of dark cloudiness, sorrow, depressing weather, and possibly the one who abused the child. The structure and mood of the image brings out the child’s emotions and affections to the audience. The text and the image have a well-oriented relationship that shows how the child feels emotionally without acknowledging the image. The objects in the image have different orientations or parts that are sparse and can come together and tell a story, they tell what happened to the child without knowing the full story.

The child within this image feels that she doesn’t belong in the world around her. According to the text in the image, the abuse that the child has been experiencing is deeper than just being beaten by a...