Rhetorical Analysis

At first glance you do not even realize what is on the plate.  Upon closer examination the audience can see that is a very small portion of peas and corn.  The small amount of food is the only thing on the clean white plate.  A knife and fork lay perfectly aligned to the left side of the photo and a small glass of water rests at the upper right hand side of the photo.  Overall the picture is very bland and quite boring, but the meaning behind it is very complex.  The fact that a knife is even present it very strange because there is absolutely nothing to cut.  The portion is so small that it can not even be considered a meal and one can begin to think what person is sitting in the position behind the plate waiting to eat this very minimal meal.  This picture brings about a sense of sadness in the audience after they realize what this picture entails.  At first I did not even notice anything strange about the picture, but then my eyes were directed towards what was on the plate.  About six little peas and kernels of corn lay in two tiny piles parallel to each other.  

The title of this picture is anorexia, which I think is a very appropriate title.  This brings into view the large problem with women and girls self image these day and the increasing problem with the amount of girls with eating disorders.  This plate is just an example of something that is very wrong with the world.  The fact that girls starve themselves in order to become skinnier shows a very problematic view of women in the world.  Constantly, unrealistic pictures of models and famous people are paraded on the media for young girls watching to yearn for that type of body.  In a way this picture depicts not only a vast problem with the way that women view their body, but also the way that the media represents an ideal figure of a women.  The women on television and on the covers of magazines do not portray a normal women in the United States or even around the world.  This single picture can then be a small representation of the entire problem of anorexia with just minimal effort.