Global issue: in what ways can a political of power affect one’s willingness to consider conflicting ideas.

literary text: The Intoxicated by Shirley Jackson

Non-literary text: twitter from Donald J. Trump

Today I am going to talk about how does a different political power can affect one’s willingness to consider conflicting ideas in The intoxicated by Shirley Jackson and a twitter from Donald J. Trump.

First, I am going to talk about the literary text: the intoxicated.  The man in the short story was having a conversation with the host’s daughter in the kitchen when he escaped from the party hoping to get sober.  From their conversation, we can see that the way this girl behaves and talks is very different from what the man used to do when he was young, and this man does not support this change of thinking and behavior in younger generation.  When the man was young “girls thought about cocktails and necking and nothing else” this suggest that during the time we he was young, girls or even all youngsters are not motivated and doing things that benefiting themselves or society which is contrasting to the young girl here. By the fact that the man repeated the sentence girl thought “cocktails and necking and nothing else’ for twice, this seem to suggest that in his conscious, he believe the girls nowadays should do so too. This is also a irony in which girls in the past are hanging out and do nothing everyday while the host’s daughter in the age of 17 already begin to think about the future of world. The difference in behaviors during young age is foreshadowing the dissonance of their ideas in the end of the story.  Unlike a normal girl in the modern life, the girl in the story’s prediction of the future is not happy and wealthy, but a tragedy. “All the big apartment houses by the river, slipping down slowly into the water with people inside.” “Maybe we in our Latin class will be the last people who ever read Caesar.”  From her description of the future world, it is more like a process of destruction. This seems to imply that the current world is not working well enough to to make a girl believe things will get better. The man became unsettled gradually as the girl keep describing the details of the future, he said “ I think it’s a little silly for you to fill your mind with all these morbid trash.  Buy yourself a movie magazine and settle down.” The man denied the girls’s idea about the future, he thinks that idea is come from youth foolishness. “ He wanted badly to say something adult and scathing, and yet he was afraid of showing her that he had listened too her.” This suggests the girl’s idea made this man speechless,  but he has a typical stereotype that the adult has more power than a child and the adult should be always dominant in a conversation, therefore he wants to say something scathing to become dominant, and he afraid to show that he had listened because he does not want the girl to know that he is listening and respect her ideas because of his belief of his higher social position.

Then I will talk about the non literary text of Trump’s twitter regarding the young girl Greta Thunberg. Greta Thunberg became the front cover of the magazine Person of the Year because of her huge accomplishment on raising awareness of climate change. Donald Trump sent a twitter in response to this. His tone of commenting this was mocking, and showed his  scorn attitude.  This is evidenced in when Donald Trump said “ So ridiculous!”, the strong offensive diction that he used to react of Greta’s achievement. He use the exclamation mark to emphasis his strong feelings. The use of these two words We’re not only denied young Greta’s achievement, but also the ideas of climate change as well.  Donald Trump also said “ Greta must work on her anger management problem.” This is referring to Greta always uses a straightforward speaking manner and he is suggesting Greta to “ chill” . In the end of Donald Trump’s twitter, he said :” go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend!”  He is suggesting some stereotypical things that most of teenage girls are doing, because Greta is doing things that is so different —- raising awareness for climate change—- which Donald Trump does not believe, so he thinks she should give up what she is doing and be a ordinary girl. Donald Trump believes things like climate change does not exist, so when young Greta is putting so much effort to wok on it, it seems nonsense and even waste of time to Donald Trump, therefore he suggest some ordinary thing in order to convince her to stop working on climate change. Donald Trump as the president of America, his age and political position is way more higher than young Greta, so when Greta was trying to bring something new to the public eyes, it is hard for Donald Trump to believe what a kid is saying. A common stereotypical thinking is when a man gets older, he is more experienced and knowledgeable, so what he says is correct and youngsters should be obey what they said.

In conclusion, even though the creation  of two texts are 70 years apart, but the context of them are surprisingly similar: both of the main character are not willing to accept ideas from a young girl, because both men have more experience and knowledge, so the brand new ideas proposed by a kid is hard for them to believe what they are saying, also they do not want to lower their social status and the fact that they are more experienced and knowledgeable, so to listen to a kid is sounding embarrassing and awkward for them. According to the non literary text  Donald Trump’s twitter and the literary text The Intoxicated,  two men are unwilling to accept the idea from a child because their stereotypical belief of the younger ones should always be obeying what the older said.

This advertisement was advertising a perfume under the brand GUESS. The target audience of this advertisement are people from English speaking country, white women who are aged between 20 to 40. This is because all text in this advertisement is in English so their target audience must able to understand English, also the woman in the advertisement is white, the clothes that she is wearing, her posture and her facial expression are delivering a signal that she is sexy and sexually attractive to males. Young white women may get interested in this ad because the ad is leading audience to think that if they use the presume, they will be as attractive as this women shown in the ad which all women are wanting to be noticed or being attractive to men.   The purpose of this advertisement is to raising awareness and promoting their new scent of perfume.

The background of this advertisement is a corner of a bedroom, a woman stands on the right side of the picture with a sexy posture. The brand name GUESS and the series of the perfume “ Seduction” are on the left side of the advertisement along with the picture of the perfume and a sentence which encourages customers to discover more about their new perfume. The women on the  advertisement was dressing a lingerie of black lace, she made a sexy posture in which she put her left hand on her waist and the right hand on her forehead. She was wearing heavy makeups, her mouth was slightly open and showing a seductive gaze towards the camera ( her gaze is corresponding to the title Seductive). The word “ I am yours” is right above the perfume and the colors of the words and the perfume is the same—- light pink. This seems to deliver a message that if you use this perfume then I am yours, so the target audience will automatically link this statement to the sexy woman on the right side,  which makes young women thinking if they use it they will be as attractive as this woman shown on this ad. The color of the brand name GUESS and the series of the perfume Seductive are in gold which matches the color of the background color of the logo on the perfume bottle. The black color of the lingerie that the woman wears matches the color of the spray cup, and her pink lips corresponds to the color of the perfume. The producer of the advertisement intentionally match the color of the text and the image so that the audience can easily link the text with the image in order to reach the ideal illusion that advertisement wants to create.

In the background of this advertisement, there is a corner of a bed on the right side of the ad. Along with the woman on the same side when she wears lingerie, audience will make the connection of the women and the bed, which is a sexual connotation.  The woman’s wearing is considered sexy and usually wear this type of clothes when couples make love, so the clothes itself already have a strong sexual connotation. The woman and the bed on the corner linking with the words “seductive” , which makes people think that this perfume is seductive to men and if I use it I will be seductive to men as well and that creates a demand of this product to the potential customer.

The brand name GUESS is in the biggest font and the category of the perfume Seductive is in smaller font. This is because the producer wants to emphasis the brand first to grab the attention of the customers, then drag their attention to the more specific series of perfume which is Seductive. The statement “I am yours” is in decorated letter making it stands out from the background and the color of it creates the connection between the perfume and the statement.

This advertisement used the technique of problem & solution. The producer found that most of women may not confident enough for themselves of being attractive to men, so the producer intentionally placed a sexy and attractive woman on the ad to create the illusion that their consumers will be the same . That provide a potential solution for their lack of confidence so that it creates a demand of need to purchase this product.