Sandy Hook Shooting

http://24.media.tumblr.com/54bd1320940122b1cdd6a309447a7dec/tumblr_mf4mpr0yJF1qdevr8o1_500.jpg

This picture is of Santa Clause making his way through Connecticut and crying when he saw that there would be children at Sandy Hook Elementary who wouldn’t be getting gifts this year.  This cartoon was created after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in the Sandy Hook village of Newport, Connecticut.  The author of this cartoon is known for creating caricatures, mostly of children.  The event hit him especially hard because he loves children and capturing their happiness through art.  The purpose was to redirect attention from gun control and from Adam Lanza towards the losses of the families in Sandy Hook.  The audience was anyone who has heard of the shooting and is thinking about the families who have lost children, nieces, nephews, siblings, and grandchildren.  I think it’s also for the people who are trying to take this tragedy and manipulate it to be about gun control laws or about who saw warning signs in Adam Lanza.  Instead of trying to push an agenda people might, for once, consider the emotional loss people are going through and the sadness they will deal with taking gifts back to the store for their dead children.  A tool the author used to be successful in achieving his message was the allusion to Santa Claus.  Santa is supposed to represent happiness and the kind of hope and belief only children can have so by showing him crying with the gifts scattered by the sleigh they show how innocence died with the twenty children in that Elementary school. 

Scratch and Dent Dreams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTa4B7wQ_8

This poem, “Scratch and Dent Dreams,” was written and performed by Eric Darby and won the 2005 Slam Poetry semi-finals.  It is about dreams that we all give up on and what you can do with them when you pick them back up again.  It takes place in a store that sells dreams, hope, and second chances.  Eric Darby is a nationally recognized poet who has competed in and won several poetry competitions.  His works have been included in four spoken word anthologies, and he’s had two albums released by Poetry Jam and Rounder Records.  Currently, he attends Syracuse where is a creative writing fellow.  He wrote this poem to inspire hope in people that give up on their dreams and to lead them to give that same hope to others.  The intended audience was dreamers and those who think of themselves as failures.  Also, the poem was directed towards people who love slam poetry and other works belonging to Eric Darby.  This poem overflows with examples of pathos, comparisons, and hidden meanings.  For example, the title of the poem is scratch and dent dreams.  Something that is “scratch and dent” in a store means that when you take it up to the register you get money off for its imperfections; a small tear or maybe a scratch on the side.  This comparison of imperfect dreams to other “ruined” merchandise was very effective in getting Darby’s message across because it reminded those who have given up or are struggling that just because their dream isn’t as perfect as they’d like, that doesn’t mean it has to be over.  An example of pathos is when Eric said, “You won't have any directions or factory number tabs but don’t panic, there’s a hundred ways to do it right and none to do it wrong.”  The emotions used here are hope and perseverance.  I found this line very effective because often, people give up once things get difficult and he doesn’t want them to do that.  He is basically saying that you can’t mess up your dreams as long as you keep going.