In recent years and the past decade,
as technology continues to improve and smartphone, tablet, and laptop ownership
is on the rise, society seems to be shying away from the library. People I ask
just say, “Well, everything is on the internet now!” In a recent The New
Yorker issue, Roz Chast challenged this idea by drawing a cartoon, called Shelved,
displaying a full shelf of books and a man in front sitting with a laptop and
headphones. In the cartoon, Chast uses unique facial expressions and scaling to
show the neglect “felt” by the books and encourage viewers to give the library
another look.
On the huge shelf of books behind
the man in the cartoon, Chast drew unique and humorous faces on each of the
books to emphasize the lost interest in books. For example, some of the books
on the shelf show confused or angry faces. They also seem to be looking down at
the man in the foreground. These faces reveal, through personification, how the
books feel because of neglect, and hopefully encourage viewers to give them
another look. Other faces look like they are sleeping, which shows that the
books “are bored” and therefore are upset that no one is opening them and
absorbing the knowledge they have to offer. All of these faces are Chast’s way
of appealing to viewers’ pathos, therefore encouraging them to embrace the
library in a time where the internet and cyber-technology have taken over.
As the viewer’s focus shifts down
toward the man from the top of the cartoon, they notice the extreme smallness
of the man and his belongings compared to the shelf of books behind him. This
scaling serves to reveal the vast knowledge books have to offer by showing the
internet and new technology as being inadequate in comparison. The size of the
computer on the man’s lap is much, much smaller than the size of the bookshelf,
which emphasizes the knowledge gap between the books in existence and
technology. The man himself is also very small, and his ignorant posture, with his
back turned on the shelf, serves to focus the viewer’s attention on themselves.
By increasing the relative size of the bookshelf and emphasizing the ignorance
of the man, Chast is able to appeal to his viewers’ emotions and propose the
return to the library and to books.
Released in 2010, Shelved
came at the perfect time, right on schedule for age of the smartphone and cloud
computing. With so much technology being shoved in consumers’ faces, it is kind
of hard to resist the temptation. Hopefully, Shelved is an effective
reminder of the wealth in books and an encouragement to the trips back to the
library.
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