Power of Graffiti and Images in Literature and History
This essay examines the power of visual images and symbolic acts to communicate injustice, drawing on Ashraf Rushdy's "Exquisite Corpse" and Fiona Barr's "The Wall-Reader." Rushdy compares the racially motivated murders of Emmett Till and James Byrd, analyzing how the public display—or deliberate withholding—of photographic evidence shaped public awareness of racism in America. Barr's short story follows a Belfast woman whose casual observation of graffiti gradually implicates her in the dangerous political conflict surrounding her. Together, the two works illustrate how bodies, photographs, and written words on walls function as potent symbols of hatred, injustice, and social upheaval that cannot be easily ignored.
- Introduction: Images Over Words: Images convey injustice more powerfully than words
- Emmett Till and the Power of the Open Casket: Till's open casket exposed American racism
- Graffiti and Political Violence in Belfast: A woman's daily walks reveal IRA conflict
- James Byrd and the Shifting Symbol of the Body: Byrd's murder shifts focus to the perpetrator's body
- Mary's Awakening and the Word on the Wall: A single word on a wall changes Mary's life
- The Body and the Wall as Icons of Injustice: Both texts show hatred through visual symbols
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay draws a clear and sustained parallel between two very different texts — a historical news article and a short story — showing how both use visual symbols to explore themes of violence and injustice.
- The comparative structure is well-organized, alternating between the two works in a way that builds toward a unified conclusion about the power of images over words.
- The use of a direct quotation from Barr's story is effective, grounding the literary analysis in textual evidence and illustrating the emotional impact of the graffiti motif.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative literary and cultural analysis, placing a journalistic essay about real historical events alongside a work of short fiction to develop a thematic argument. By treating photographs of lynching victims and wall graffiti as parallel symbolic "texts," the writer shows how objects and images function rhetorically within both literary and historical contexts.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a thematic claim about the supremacy of images over words, then introduces both source texts. It alternates between Rushdy's account of Till and Byrd and Barr's fictional Belfast narrative, developing each in increasing depth before arriving at a synthesizing conclusion. The body of the essay moves from historical analysis to literary analysis and back, mirroring its central argument that visual symbols transcend medium and genre.
Introduction: Images Over Words
Every day, people read the news in the papers or hear reports on television about various crimes. It is easy to dismiss the words on the page or the words of an anchor. It is much harder to look away from an image. Long ago, people discovered that images were more potent than written words could be. There is the old expression that a picture is worth a thousand words. Both "Exquisite Corpse" and "The Wall-Reader" focus on the importance of visual images to convey messages to the world at large.
In the first piece, Ashraf Rushdy uses the stories of Emmett Till and James Byrd to convey how times have changed between one racially-charged murder and another. In Till's case, photos of his corpse were made public to teach the world about the horrors of racism; in Byrd's case, his photographs were not publicized because his family did not think it was necessary. In Fiona Barr's story, a young woman goes out for a stroll with her child only to have her eyes opened to the horrors of the world around her. She embodies the person who could hear about the violence surrounding her and ignore it — until she is face-to-face with it. Both stories are about people who are forever altered by the things they see.
In Ashraf Rushdy's article "Exquisite Corpse," the author compares two of the most horrific crimes in American history. The crimes are more than forty years apart but were perpetrated for the same ignorant reasons. Emmett Till and James Byrd were not killed for anything they did, but because of the color of their skin. Racism was the motive behind their deaths. Their corpses took on new meaning after their deaths — no longer merely the remains of a former human being, they became icons of destruction and symbols of the deadly nature of racism. More than a discussion of two harrowing acts of racist violence in the American South, the article is also a discussion about the importance of the body as a symbol of something larger. The human corpse in the Till case and the bodies of Byrd and his killer are emblems of the psychological and sociological crises of hate crimes.
In "The Wall-Reader," a woman is nonchalantly walking her young child through the streets of Belfast. Here too, the central event is a crime. Although painting graffiti on walls is hardly on the same level of criminality as murder, it is still an act of rebellion against authority. This woman represents the viewing audience. Just as she watches the different graffiti as a pastime, so too does the reader observe her. She is an avatar for all of humanity who sit by as the world descends into acts of violence. At first, she watches the walls for no reason other than to pass the time. Over time, she realizes that the messages are more important than she had originally estimated and that they have a direct impact on her life.
Works Cited
Barr, Fiona. "The Wall-Reader." W.W. Norton & Company. Web. Nov. 2011.
Rushdy, Ashraf. "Exquisite Corpse." 2000. pp. 356–365. Print.
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