Word Picture Analysis #2

It’s getting late, the streets are deserted, but they aren’t ready to leave one another just yet. They see a café open and duck in to have coffee and to draw the night out a little longer. They realize almost immediately that this was a mistake, the café is far too empty, the waiter appears far too desperate, but they sit down and order anyway. They notice one other diner, a man sitting by himself completely absorbed in his own thoughts and oblivious to them. The waiter seems to realize this guest is a lost cause, and so he focuses his attention upon them. Hoping they will order something more, and if not, that they will leave him a good tip anyway, it had not been a good night. The waiter miscalculates by attempting to strike up a conversation with the gentleman, he has completely isolated the companion, and she is sitting there studying her manicure out of boredom. He can tell by the stony look on the gentleman’s face that this is a lost cause, he will not be ordering anything else, or receiving a satisfactory tip.

Structuralism is the analysis of a text using signs and symbols from within. “It is the social side of speech, outside the individual who can never create nor modify it by himself; it exists only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community” (850). A lot of these signs exist because as a community we agree that they do. If meaning is found through the signs and symbols within a text, and these signs have meaning because of a general agreement, then aren’t we partially responsible for the meaning we draw from the text? I think this is particularly true with this exercise. We look at a picture, and write a story about it, obviously when we write the story it will be based on the signs and symbols we find within the picture. Now we go back and analyze the story written with the signs and symbols that we identified. Therefore we are partially responsible for the meaning we find in it.

Each person in the picture is dressed rather nicely, which provides a stark contrast to the unadorned, simple café they are in. There is no art on the walls; it is primarily empty, except for the bar where all three customers are sitting. This emptiness brings about a sense of loneliness and desperation, especially demonstrated in the lone customer seemingly in the same room as everyone else, but at the same time completely apart from the others. The waiter seems desperate because he is pictured in an awkward, ready to serve you at a moment’s notice, stance. He seems focused on the gentleman, but his lady friend clearly could care less about what they are discussing.