Two Sides of the Story Essay Example

with a loving family and a place to call home.

However the reality is that Silie is an orphan, who has been adopted only once by a mother who ended up having to return her to the orphanage from which she came. The series of events that Silie has gone through have scared her for the rest of her life, it not something that one can see from looking at her face. The illusion that Silie creates of a normal everyday girl laughing and loving life differs greatly from the hurt and pain of her reality, being an orphan who has lost family more than once.

At first glance this picture shows two school girls, both friends enjoying their childhood and celebrating their right to be carefree and blissful. In the picture of Silie, the first things that captures my attention is the smile on her face, she appears to be completely and truly happy. The heart painted on her cheek also adds to her overall appearance of joy. The background shows that she is in a very crowded and busy place with many faces equally enjoying their ime, especially her friend of the right, who appears to be just as exuberant as Silie. The multiple ethnicities of the people located in the background also tell us that the setting is very accepting place and also many have a population of diversity. Another key factor in this photograph is the ethnicity of its central character Silie. She appears to come form a diverse background, which adds to the primary meaning of the photo, which is of collectiveness and togetherness.

The photo shot is dreadfully posed because they both

were asked to smile for the camera, so whether the smile is natural or an act can be decipher by the viewers perspective. This relates to Stein’s view as well when she states, “Through our eyes often deceive us, the objective character of photography encourages viewers to rely on sensory appearance as the incontrovertible bedrock of experience-based knowledge” (Stein 637). This quote says that because our eyes often lead us astray we also rely on the sense that we fell when looking at a photo to help us decipher its meaning.

Using that sense viewers of this photo get a felling of warmth, and joy, which leads them to conclude that this picture is naturally one of happiness. However, the actual reality of this photo is nowhere near as joyous or celebratory as its illusion may state. Silie is one of the many orphans in urban India; she was dropped on the doorsteps of the Indian Orphanage when she was just a baby by her birth parents. From that time she has known of her parent’s lack of love for her, and their choice of defeat.

Today Silie is eleven years old; she has been adopted only once since her entrance into the orphanage, but its effect was not expected. Silie was adopted by a single mother, with no other family or relatives that she was in contact with; Silie was adopted by her when she was eight years old. She lived happily and peacefully with her new mother until one day Silie’s new mom passed away from a heart attack. With nobody else to look after her, Silie returned to the orphanage once again, becoming an

orphan for the second time.

The heart beak and incredible sadness that Silie had to endure placed such am impact on her heart, that now she never wants to be adopted. She wishes to stay in the orphanage with people that she knows will not leave her. The events in her life have caused her to repress any emotionally sad feeling that she has, and replace then with a fake mask of absolute happiness. This is what is portrayed in the photo which causes the view to see it as a joyous moment, rather than a moment of repression.

Stein supports this by saying, “Lange’s mistaken assumption amplifies the generalizing tendencies in both New Deal culture and subsequent scholarship of the period” (Stein 637). The views of this photo will just make assumptions and generalize it as a familiar and happy photo of two girls playing, and people decipher this for a reason. Stein explains why people generalize rather then see the truth, “rather, for those in the mainstream, there may be other benefits that accrue from, imagining oneself more closely connected to the other” (Stein 639).

Stein feels that people only wish to see the good in a picture because if they saw the negative aspect then they would have to face it or deal with it. The illusions portrayed in any photograph differ form the realities which are there. Silie is portrayed as a normal happy child with a positively joyous grin, but her reality is anything from that. The posed photo forces us to see the mask she wears everyday in order to hide her pain, because people only choose to see one side. Silie

wearing the mask is all that is seen.

We as human prefer to only see the positive and mainstream side of the picture, because then we would realize what kind of a world we live in and then act that we have to take action and prevent the hurt of others. Work Cited Stein, Sally. “Passing Likeness: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother and the Paradox of Iconicity. ” Situating Inquiry: An Introduction to Reading, Research, and Writing at the University of Washington. Ed. Angela Rounsaville, Rachel Goldberg, Keith Feldman, Cathryn Cabral, and Anis Bawarshi. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 628-641.