Academic Exchange Quarterly Winter 2005 ISSN 1096-1453 Volume 9, Issue 4
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Seeing and Reading through the Culture of War
Tracy Bilsing,
Carroll
Bilsing, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of English
whose research interests are in British literature and the world wars. Nardone, Ph.D., is
an assistant professor in rhetoric and professional communication.
Abstract
Students often have trouble understanding culture outside
their own generation. One of the ways that we can bridge the gap for students
is to focus on a culture engaged in war—an event which permeates all aspects of
society. Using emotionally and politically charged images provides a
preliminary method for students to engage in analysis. Then literature emerging from war can serve
as the conduit through which educators can more effectively teach students to
analyze cultural influences shaped by war and its effects.
Introduction:
Cultural Influences, the Self, and War
In our highly mediated culture, visual representations shape
much of our knowledge about the world apart from our own corporeal
experiences. To a generation accustomed
to a daily onslaught of images, visuals are often seen as a normal component in
the transfer of information, and because of the pervasiveness of these images,
people do not ordinarily think about the dissemination of ideology. In Remediation,
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin state, “we employ
media as vehicles for defining both personal and cultural identity. [. . .]
New media offer new opportunities for self-definition, for now we can
identify with the vivid graphics and digitized videos of computer games as well
as [. . .] film and television logos” (231). Also, because we “always understand a medium
in relation to other past and present media” (231), we are constantly reworking
awareness of our selves in relation to culture.
While people thumb through magazines, mindlessly watch television
programs, or surf the internet, they are bombarded with a vast number of
ordinary images; therein lies the concern.
We must recognize that these seemingly ordinary images transfer inherently
invisible ideologies, inviting us to remake ourselves in those images. Visual messages are not always nefariously
constructed, nor do they all have negative consequences; nonetheless, their
power to influence society cannot be understated. Because they form their views of the world
beyond their own experiences, students must be able to mediate and to analyze critically
visual forms of communication and the impact these visual messages might have.
Training in visual rhetoric must be placed within students’
literary education. We suggest the
concepts of visual rhetoric can be easily grasped through the propaganda
posters created by the Office of Public Information (OPI), which worked to
garner support for WWI, and were arguably part of the most successful public
relations campaign in
Linking Images and
Literature
Since engaging in war necessarily politicizes private space,
the home front is open to the introduction of psychological manipulation used
to sway opinion to support war and to recruit armed forces. Though the
Understanding that oftentimes graphic illustrations conveyed
messages more immediately upon the public sensibility than printed material,
Creel hired artists whose job it was to produce propaganda—emotional
manipulation of the mass sensibility towards support of the war to end all wars. In this era before mass broadcast media, the
poster proved a highly effective tool for conveying information; twenty million
were plastered all over the
Similarly, some early war literature offered a romantic
vision of soldiering. Most famously,
Rupert Brooke’s Sonnets of 1914
glorify the soldier and the fighting experience, likening the soldiers to
“swimmers into cleanness leaping.” (“Peace” 4).
In the same way, Julian Grenfell’s highly popular “Into Battle” (1915)
offers a stirringly beautiful account of death in battle:
And when the
burning moment breaks
And all things
else are out of mind,
And only joy
of battle takes
Him by the
throat and makes him blind,
[. . .]
The thundering
line of battle stands,
And in the air
death moan and sings;
But day shall
clasp him with strong hands,
And night
shall fold him with soft wings. (35-38,
43-46)
The standard visions of WWI soldiers portrayed in propaganda posters and literature offer romantically-charged images of the hero, which initially became the pervasive beliefs of a culture at war. These provocative images drawn from romantic notions of war materialized in an overwhelmingly successful campaign to gain support and recruits for the war. However, historically we know the reality of the war was very much different. Wilfred Owen provides the indictment of the glorious portrayal of war in the lines from his well-known poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” (1917):
If you could
hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the
froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the
cud
Of vile, incurable sores on
innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell
with such high zest
To children ardent for some
desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce
et Decorum est
Pro patria mori. (21-28 )
The memoirs which emerged after the war similarly
demystified the war experience. Erich Maria Remarque’s
All Quiet on the Western Front,
Robert Graves’ Goodbye to all That,
Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero, and Siegfried Sassoon’s Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, among others, provide biting
commentary on battle and the long-reaching effects of war which refute the
propaganda which inspired so many men to go to war.
Once again, nearly one hundred years after WWI, we are a
nation at war. We, the Americans of the 21st century, are being bombarded with
images of war and the threat of terrorism on our shores just as Americans were
in the second decade the 20th century. The
call to protect and to serve
Studies in the emerging field of visual rhetoric merge traditional literary analysis with analysis of visual images to determine the ways meanings are formed in our society. Our vision, our texts, our rhetoric are never neutral since our minds do not function in a vacuum devoid of subjectivity, political agendas, and points of view (Handa 377). Theorist Irit Rogoff asks us to find out which aspects of the historical past actually have circulating visual representation and which do not. To find out, he argues that we must look at visuals intertextually so we can read the “images, sounds, and spatial delineations […] onto and through one another, lending ever-accruing layers of meaning and of subjective responses, to each encounter we might have with film, TV, advertising, art works, buildings, […] urban environments” (Rogoff 381) and especially literature. In essence, the propagandized representations of war begun through the Office of Public Information in WWI, which continue through the 21st century within media as diverse as film, print, and the World Wide Web, continue to inform the way the military is perceived in our country and thus constitute what functions as a cultural discourse to be read against emerging literary texts. Contemporary military recruitment has tapped into the “what’s in it for me” (Sackett and Mavor, Attitudes 230) attitude of its potential recruits and has created motivating images to encourage awareness of this “alternative career” choice. An evocative tool within the military’s advertising is the catch phrase, “patriotic adventure” which recalls past images of soldiers and soldiering which offset the realities associated with warfare. The call to duty is couched in visual/textual/rhetorical images which appeal to today’s youth between the ages of 16-21: “extreme” sportsmanship, adventurous spirit of individuality, challenge, and pride in country gained through being “all that you can be.”
Structuring the Link
between Past and Present
In his book, Analyzing
Everyday Texts: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Social Perspectives, Glenn Stillar shows us how to organize textual analysis and
conduct theoretically informed critical analyses of everyday information—a
label that can easily be placed on images in our highly visual culture. In the same way that we can study a written
text through understanding its rhetorical structure, visual images can enhance
the deconstruction to reveal an interesting interplay of beliefs, ideals, and
assumptions. Since visuals operate in
much the same way as written texts and are structured through much the same
discourse frameworks, we can use social semiotics as a method to uncover the
beliefs, ideals, and assumptions carried in today’s visual images. Stillar’s textual
analysis process is structured to help practitioners of discourse analysis who
are looking for ways to instantiate the work of Kenneth Burke, among others. Acknowledging that no method is free from
representing some structures of ideology and power, using the discourse
framework allows for the analysis to be a “form of participation with the very
practices it analyzes” (Stillar 9). Using WWI images and texts, teachers can
provide a model for students so that they may more readily engage in critical
analysis of contemporary cultural modes of representation.
One assignment might have students analyze one of the
infamous propaganda posters of WWI in conjunction with one of the more famous
poems of the era. A well-known poster of
the time preys on the fear of invasion and the ensuing damage to American
womanhood and therefore
In linking these seemingly disparate components students will be able to develop their interpretation skills of culturally-produced visual, literary, and public texts. The ironic juxtaposition found within the disparity between inculcated notions and lived experience can be translated into contemporary visuals such as the recruiting advertisements for the US Armed Services, in conjunction with emerging literary texts. As an example, Anthony Swofford’s memoir Jarhead brutally recounts his time spent as a Marine sniper in the Gulf War. Although Swofford is proud of his service in the Marines, what emerges from his account of active service is quite different than the images presented by the media and magazine ads. His harshly realistic account of soldiering might be read against the now legendary media coverage of the war presented by CNN as well as against current ads for military recruitment.
Images for this exercise can be found in a variety of locations. For those images associated with the military, we suggest Armed Forces websites, magazines, television—particularly those channels (MTV, VH1, BET) and programs which target youth, and the internet (Google images or Yahoo! Pictures). However, our purpose in this essay is descriptive rather than prescriptive. We want to offer a framework for a classroom exercise that instructors can adapt to differing situations based on desired outcome. We also want to foster an understanding of the myriad ways in which visual images barrage our sensibilities and also to offer a critical lens through which to translate all cultural messages, not just those confined to the military. A useful tool to consider such lenses is to think of them as “terministic screens [which] direct the attention” (Burke 45). These screens are verbal filters we construct and through which we perceive reality. Reality, in these Burkean terms does not come to us whole; instead language as a “symbolic action” is a “reflection of reality, [. . .] a selection of reality [. . .], and a deflection of reality” (45). Advertisers play on this, using verbal images to direct our attention and so focus on those aspects they wish to feature. Military recruitment offers a reflection, a selection, as well as a deflection of the nature of warfare in order to gain support and troops. However, it is the lived experience of the combatants, captured in current and emerging literary texts that will ultimately allow for greater understanding of and a more informed critical analysis of our current culture of war.
Conclusion
This essay presents a framework for deconstructing visual
images and literary texts to help students better understand their culture. Using examples from previous generations torn
by war, we can easily see how images manipulated public opinion and supported
particular ideologies. Through this lens,
students can deconstruct their own media-saturated cultures and perceive how
people are often influenced through seemingly innocuous images. Linking the deconstruction of images to
literary analysis presents a valid structure for discerning how texts and
images work in concert to cement our culturally ascribed positions, or not. Once we can see how these textual functions
operate within a historical context, we can use the ironic juxtapositions to
illuminate how ideologies are working to shape consent today.
References
Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of
American Youth. Paul R. Sackett, and
Anne Mavor, eds. Committee on Youth
Population and Military Recruitment.
Bolter, Jay
David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation:
Understanding New Media.
Brooke,
Rupert. “Peace.” Poetry
of the Great War: An Anthology. Eds.
Dominic Hibberd and John Onions.
Burke,
Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method.
Evaluating Military Advertising and
Recruiting: Theory and Methodology. Paul
R.Sackett, and Anne S. Mavor, eds. Committee on Youth
Population and Military Recruitment.
Ewen. Stuart. PR! A Social History of Spin. NY: Basic Books, 1996.
Grenfell,
Julian. “Into
Handa, Carolyn. “Introduction to Part Five.” Visual
Rhetoric in a Digital World: A Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Carolyn Handa.
Owen,
Wilfred. “Dulce
et Decorum Est.” Poetry of the Great War: An Anthology. Eds. Dominic Hibberd
and John Onions.
---. “Strange Meeting.” Poetry
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