This image of sixteen-year-old Rubel is an important contemporary image because it is the face that exhibits the suffering behind the American life style. I discovered this picture in TIME Magazines ‘A Year in Photos’. I believe this photo was chosen to represent the year since it is what made our year possible. It is the hidden ‘back bone’ to our year. Without slave labor the Americans way of life would be more expense and less comfortable. One of the most intriguing elements displayed in the photo is the child’s glowing skin. This metallic covering draws a parallel to this boy and a machine. It is symbolic, for this boy is treated like a machine, and he is not valued as a human being.
Although the boy may be viewed as a machine, a sharp contrast exists because of the eye contact he is making with the viewer. The boy’s eyes are the only defined and clear aspects of the photo, therefore they stand out. The image is forcing us to make eye contact with Ruble. It is forcing us to look directly into the eyes of another human being who is suffering at our own expense. This puts the ‘machine’ in more human light. It also compels us to grasp that there is a human being behind our lifestyle. A NPR radio pod cast that we listened to in class reported from a sweatshop in Jordan, “As soon as you walk by, they (the workers) put their heads down”. This action by workers at a sweatshop in Jordan greatly contrasts the actions of Ruble. ‘Heads down’ is an action of avoiding eye contact, which communicates that, they feel inferior and intimidated. This is because they are working for us and suffering for us.
Another element that this photo conveys is confinement. The darkness of the photo communicates that the boy is confined in a small area with little hope. The sliver of light is a distant thought of freedom, but it is unattainable for these workers. Similarly in the story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omalas, a young boy is sacrificed to suffer in confinement so that the rest of the town can live full and prospering lives. The child sacrificed dwells in a closet with“...one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards”. The light that is seeping into the darkness shows the boy a distant idea of freedom, but highly improbable for him. Ruble pictured in my artifact as well as the child in Omalas, are both suffering at the expense of the affluent. The children are both restricted to their living conditions, the option of freedom is possible, but unrealistic. Ruble needs to make money in order to survive, and employments like working in an aluminum factory are his only options. Due to the fact the Americans demand cheaper items. This child could be set free and enrolled in school, but this would fail to support the American lifestyle. Therefore the only resolution is Americans alter their lifestyle, to a poorer quality of life. The boy from Omalas could be set free and properly feed but then the townspeople’s would have inferior quality lives.
Suffering for affluent people has been a theme in history, especially during slavery. As Fredrick Douglass says: “I was… wipped by my old master… I suffered much from hunger... in (the) hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked”. The reason for Douglass’s suffering was solely a result of the effluent’s privileged lives. Douglass was not feed or clothed properly, because if he had been than his labor would have been more costly. Merely because lower class people have suffered for affluent people in the past, and currently, it is not an excuse for this to continue to occur in the future.
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