We previously had to read ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ by Roland Barthes and discuss the linguistic character of imagery and how messages can be contained within them. The second part to this assignment was to pick 3 random images and ask a select number of people to look at the images and write a short story, within 5 minutes. This was to either prove or question Barthes theories. The three images that I picked at random where a girl blowing a dandelion, a cat and a clock.
The results were extremely varied and the stories had a wide range of imagination but there were some recurring themes.
Name: William
Age: 53
Gender: Male
Profession: Shunter
Story: While the girl was out playing blowing dandelions in the fields. Her cat thought she could have a nice nap in her soft bed. But the time was running out as it was almost one o’clock and her mother was making launch for her and the cat
Name: Sarah
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Profession: Sales Assistant
Story: It was a beautiful summer day the green field was filled with cotton topped Dandelions . In the distance the church clock chimed 1in the afternoon the little girl enjoyed the Field of dandelions as she picked them up and blew the flower seeds into the air and watched them float away, her grey cat lay sleeping on the pillow of her bed.
Name: Cassandra
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Profession: ICT Teacher
Story: As Katie wandered through the lush green field, she heard the church clock strike 1 o’clock in the distance. She knew she should she hurry as her mother would have lunch ready but it was such a lovely day, just as she was about to head home she noticed a dandelion, she picked and decided to make a wish. She wished for a kitten, a pet that could come with her on her adventures.
Name: Ross
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: As time began to slow, the dandelion seeds appeared to hover motionlessly in the air. Lucy knelt down and ran her hands through the course blades of grass that surrounded her. They moved with very little bounce and failed to spring back into their original position. The meadow that she had once loved was now as dead as time itself. With no weather, the sound of trees rustling or the twittering of bird’s song, the world she once loved was gone. Or so she thought . . . the tail of a grey cat could be seen through the branches of trees in the distance. She wasn’t the only one left.
Name: Rachel
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: The little girl is young and innocent, who has a close connection with her cat. Over time this bond grows stronger and stronger.
Name: Ross L
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Profession: Student
Story: A young girl spends her time wishing and dreaming. Her dreams take her to far away places and different times in history.
As you can see from these stories they vary not only in length but description. The majority of the stories have the same principles of a young girl playing in a field of dandelions and her cat lying in her bed asleep. But what surprised me was that only one mentioned about her making a wish. The clock was picked up as either one o'clock, lunchtime or to do with periods in time.
The story that I choose to be my main outcome was the one by Cassandra. The principles of her story where that the young girl was playing her garden of dandelions, around lunchtime and made a wish for a pet cat. To enable the next group of people to come up with these same ideas I added a further image to help them. This photo can be seen below:
I chose this image to help people think of the girl being at home and possibly help the thought of it being lunchtime. A few of the stories that I received from these four images can be seen below.
Name: Jake
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Profession: Student
Story: Jenny was running around the meadows, pouncing from behind tall rocks, tall grasses and clumps of dandelions. “Rarrr!” she exclaimed. “No one can ever defeat cat woman!” At that, the church clock struck one. Lunchtime. Before jenny began to run home she picked up a dandelion and blew it to make a wish; “please make me a cat”.
Name: Marianne
Age: 47
Gender: Female
Profession: Support for Learning Assistant
Story: It was one o’clock on Friday afternoon and she had just escaped work for an hour. Her Husband collected her and they drove to their house, not home. They spent the next thirty minutes in a frenzy packing the car so that they could leave straight from work that night. They were going home for the week-end, away from this God forsaken place. By five o’clock they realised they’d forgotten something, so returned to the house. As they unlocked their door, to their shock and amazement, a beautiful cat ran past them out of the house. “It’s a sign” she thought. Seven days later, finally, she got the call she’d prayed for. Her Husband was being transferred and they were going home. At last, she could allow herself to dream about the home and family she had yearned for, for so long.
Name: Brian
Age: 51
Gender: Male
Profession: Civil Servant
Story: I love going to Grandma’s, she has a big old house, which has so many rooms; each one filled with amazing things! My favourite is Grandma’s room. When you walk towards it, all you can hear is tick, tock; tick, tock getting louder with each step. Opening the door you are faced with a giant grandfather clock. Just like the nursery rhyme, hickory, dickory, dock, but there is no way any mouse would be running up that clock. Sheba, my Grandma’s cat, is always on her big iron bed, purring like an engine and ready to pounce! I love going to my Grandma’s house...
Name: Kirsty
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: It was a warm summer’s day, around lunch time. We were all relaxing in the field behind the house, wishing with the dandelions while the cat rolled around lazily on the picnic rug.
Name: Stephanie
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Profession: Shop Assistant
Story: It was 1 O’clock in the afternoon as Eva skipped down the steps of the old farmhouse. It was a lovely sunny day and she had just had lunch with her grandparents. She wondered where Smokey had got to as she reached the field full of dandelions. She began running and playing in the fields of dandelions, blowing them making wishes and watching the seeds float about in the air.
Name: Linda
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Profession: Checkout Operator
Story: It was a warm summer day and the clock in the hall had just struck 1 o’clock. The fields around the little girl’s large white house were in full bloom. The girl played in the back garden blowing the seeds of the dandelions and watching them float up into the air while her grey cat lay sleeping on her bed.
Concluding from all of these images, some of the main principles where picked up but still were not exact and now that the house has been included a lot of people included the word 'house' in their story rather than the idea that the young girl was in her garden. Another thing that was dominant in most of the stories was that the cat was lying sleeping rather than the fact that the girl was making a wish and that being for a pet cat.
I therefore decided that I would add one word to one of my images to see if the story is made clear. I added the word 'Wish' to the picture of the girl to see if this made people think that she was wishing for something i.e. a pet cat. These next stages with the words only involve the original 3 images.
Name: Fiona
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: The little girl was playing in her back garden at lunch time. Blowing the dandelions and making wishes for a pet cat.
Name: Donna
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Profession: Shop Assistant
Story: It was a lovely warm summer’s day and everything was perfect, well almost. The church clock stuck one and it was time to leave for lunch. Before the girl ran home she picked a dandelion and wished for what was missing, someone that she could play with. She already had a cat but it tended to run off all the time or would ly asleep on her bed.
Name: Carla
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Profession: Shop Assistant
Story: It was a summer’s day. The little girl was outside her house, wishing for a cat when she grows up.
Name: Maria
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Profession: Stay at home Mum
Story: The little girl was playing before lunch in the field beside the woods. Her and her family were out for the day. The dandelions were in full bloom. She began to blow the seeds away and wished her mum and dad would get a her cat that could play with her.
Name: Jackie
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Profession: Teacher
Story: As the little girl wandered through the lush green field she knew she would soon have to hurry home for lunch. She noticed a few dandelions and picked one. She blew hard and made a wish. She wished for a pet that wouldn't sleep all day the way her cat does.
The stories that I recieved for this part of the assignment gave me mixed results. Some people where picking up on the fact that the girl was wishing for a cat, while others still took the image quite literally, and wrote that she already had a cat that slept all day. The word wish now appeared in every story but not necessarily as I had hoped. To try and get the story correct I added yet another word to another image, only this time I added 'Pet' to the picture of the cat.
Name: Caroline
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: The little girl wishes for a pet cat to play with in her garden throughout the long summer days especially at lunchtime.
Name: Graeme
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Profession: Student
Story: The little girl wished to live in a large beautiful house in the country with a fuzzy grey cat when she was older.
Name: Christine
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: As the clock in the nearby farm struck 1 o’clock the little girl was playing in the field near the woods. As she picked ip a dandelion and blew the seeds away, she wished for a cat as a pet.
Name:Anita
Age: 45
Gender: Female
Profession: Pharmacy Assistant
Story: A little girl was out in the garden playing in the fields of dandelions. It was nearly lunchtime as she could hear the huge clock in the town chiming. Before heading home for lunch, she picked a dandelion and made a wish – for a pet cat.
Name: Dwight
Age: 29
Gender: Male
Profession: Restaurant Manager
Story: The little girl was playing outside in her back garden. She was in a world of her own, playing till her hearts’ content. Her garden was in full bloom and covered in dandelions. She was picking them one by one, making wishes for her future and wishing her parents would get her a pet cat.
Name: Claire
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Profession: Student
Story: As the clock in the nearby farm struck 1 o’clock the little girl was playing in the field near the woods. As she picked up a dandelion and blew the seeds away, she wished for a cat as a pet.
From all of these stories the majority of them have the main concepts. Each one has picked up on the girl making a wish and the fact that she wished for a cat as a pet but the clock is still adding a lot of variation. To try and solve this I repeated the experiment again only this time adding yet another word to the clock image. I added the word 'lunchtime'.
Name: Liz
Age: 45
Gender: Female
Profession: Checkout Operator
Story: It was a summer day and lunchtime was nearing. The little girl was outside playing in her garden with the dandelions, she was making wishes, one of which was for a pet cat.
Name: Geoff
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Profession: Engineer
Story: A little is in her garden at lunchtime playing. She makes a wish on a dandelion for a pet cat.
Name: Charlotte
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Profession: Student
Story: One day at lunchtime I was in my garden and made a wish on a dandelion for a pet.
Name: Diane
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Profession: Teacher
Story: A little girl was playing in her garden in the masses of dandelions. It was nearly time for lunch but she had time to make a wish. She wished her parents would get her a pet cat.
Concluding from all of these stories it is clear that the addition of this third word made all the stories contain the exact same things. Each story spoke of a young girl, playing in her garden at lunchtime, making wishes on dandelions for a pet cat. I also noticed that even though each of the stages with the words only had three images, nearly every person spoke of the little girl being in her garden, which shows that the house did back up images at the start. The text on the images also seems to reduce the length of the stories as they are more to the point and simply contain the principles of the story, there is no extra padding, so to speak.
The main idea behind this assignment is to prove that adding extra images and adding text to imagery can give a better understanding. At the start the images where totally random, but yet most people seemed to write the same sort of thing. By the time the fourth image was added a story had been selected and therefore a chosen meaning. However, as soon as text was added the story was totally understood and clear.
Polysemy is also something that was truely established in this assignment as it has shown that a small amount of images can be interpreted in completely different ways from one person to another.
Polysemy is also something that was truely established in this assignment as it has shown that a small amount of images can be interpreted in completely different ways from one person to another.
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