Month: June 2020

The cartoon drawn is used to highlight Trump’s insecurities and his narcissist persona which lead to him ignoring his duty of the commander in chief. Trump seems to be preparing his opening address for his daily coronavirus briefing as implied by the title. The vocabulary and grammar used by the President in his proposed speech is riddled with errors and does not have a reassuring and hopeful tone which is what it should have when addressing the nation. This cartoon seems to have been made after the coronavirus has started to wreak havoc across the country and when Trump has started referring to COVID-19 as the Chinese virus (evident by the crossing out), a ploy to divert blame towards China. While editing his address it is almost like he is counting how many times the pair of letters “me” show up, showing he is more concerned about trivial matters than the message he is trying to send to his people. The fact he is using a sharpie to edit his letter emphasizes his child-like persona as onomatopoeia is used while he writes on the paper. Regarding Trump’s portrayal itself, the artist has used caricature to present him in a satirical manner. His lips are pursed in a way that many would know and are exaggerated to make fun of him. By enlarging his face the audience is able to see all the faults in Trump’s face such as the loose skin hanging, the dirt on his face and his small eyes. His eyes are almost non-existent – another example of caricature – which could be conveying the satirical point that his inability to produce a feasible plan stems from his lack of vision of not only his eyes but his wider plan for the nation. These revealings are all intended to make us aware of how insecure Trump is, which is further touched upon with his “small hand”. In 2016, while campaigning for the Republican presidential nominee Trump rebuked fellow candidate Senator Marco Rubio’s comment that Trump had “small hands” making Trump extremely insecure. This again highlights the insecurity in President Trump and how he is obsessed with painting the best picture of himself. What is important to note is the angle that we are presented with, it is almost as if the cartoonist wants us to be in Trump’s shoes and consider things from his perspective. The cartoon presented has the main intent of showing Trump’s insecurities and how he is constantly trying to paint himself in the best possible light.

“Although Ray Bradbury’s work is often referred to as science fiction, Fahrenheit has plenty to say about the world as it is, and not as it could be.”

Fahrenheit 451 though for many readers may seem like a far-fetched world, actually draws many parallels to our current world. There is an increased question of what should be censored and who should be the ones doing the censoring. Many firms such as Facebook and Twitter have grappled with this question and has often led to much backlash. In more restricted nations, in nations such as China, Hungary, Iran the world presented in Fahrenheit 451 is very similar. Authoritarian governments control what information is being presented to the public and are increasingly changing the education systems in their respective countries to fit with the government’s values. In the book, information is controlled through one central news channel and books are deemed illegal, lesser degrees of this censorship can be seen throughout the world and shows that Bradbury’s book is in some places a real, present dystopia.

My Discussion:

My comments on Group 4’s Discussion:
I liked Eeshan’s point on how with the rapid rise of technology and different forms of entertainment our attention span has certainly decreased a lot and this shows that our world is not so different from Bradbury’s book. However, at the same time, I liked how Shreya drew the connection that having a shorter attention span due to technology is not necessarily a bad thing. We are now able to make more connections, share more ideas and overall function more coherently as a society. I definitely agreed with Raniyah’s point about how with censorship it draws us dangerously close to becoming overly sensitive which draws the question of who should be the one to censor information? Finally, I do like how the discussion switched to the question of critical thinking. I felt that it was a great point that while some things may be censored it is important that people maintain critical thinking so they can make their own opinions.

Bradbury finished writing his book at a time where the world was still reeling from the effects of the Second World War, but at the same time was increasingly wary of the growing threat of communism. Interested by how authoritarian regimes of the 20th century such as Nazi Germany burned some books they felt were a threat against their power, Bradbury explores these ideas further, but at a much greater magnitude in his novel. Much like Nazi Germany, the government in the novel perceives books to be of a threat like no other. They therefore feel the need to destroy all books in existence to ensure that no form of dissent can spread and so the government can control the thoughts of their people. During the time of the book’s punishment, a wave of fear was spreading across the United States, led by one Senator Joseph Mccarthy. He claimed there were many communist sympathizers who had infiltrated the government, high societies and even the President’s administration. These messages are further present in the book as there seems to be a need for the government to control the people