IMS 103 Assignment Blog

1) In Anne Sexton’s poem, “Cinderella,” are the images of what happens when Cinderella wishes for things good images of desirable events? (Remember to notice any scatological imagery).

In stanza 5: “Whenever she wishes for anything the dove / would drop it like an egg upon the ground.”

In stanza 7: “The bird dropped down a golden dress / and delicate little slippers. / Rather a large package for a simple bird.”

In stanza 9: “and the white dove picked their eyes out. / Two hollow spots were left / like soup spoons.”

The descriptions of what the dove does/gives Cinderella don’t make good pictures in the reader’s mind, I believe. I think the quote from stanza 7 is another scatological comparison: “rather a large package.”

2) Is the image of what happens to Cinderella after she marries the Prince, the image of their lives together that appears in the last short stanza – is that a good image, a picture of a state to be desired? (Would you want to end up that way?) What’s wrong with this picture of “living happily ever after?”

I don’t believe that Sexton’s image of “happily ever after” is a good image. To me, the tone is very negative – Cinderella might have found her dream man, but they don’t do anything. It’s as if their lives are static after they met each other – “like two dolls in a museum case” and “their darling smile pasted on for eternity” fit here.

To me, this is not an outcome to be desired. I want my life to continue after I marry, not be stuck at the moment of happiness.

3) Do you think women and men today slice off parts of their bodies to fit into “Cinderella’s shoe?”

Yes, I most certainly do think that women and men try to change their bodies and personalities to be “something” that another person is searching for. Cosmetic surgery is a great example of this – many women get breast implants because they believe it will make them more desirable to men, and thus more likely of meeting their “prince charming.”

I think men do this more in a mental than physical sense, as they’ll try often to impress women by saying they are managers or executives where they work, when they’re really just grunts.

4) How do advertisers convince people that they should buy things, according to Sut Jhally?

“Fundamentally, advertising talks to us as individuals and addresses us about how we can become happy. The answers it provides are all oriented to the marketplace, through the purchases of goods and services.”

5) What is the commodity-image system that Jhally describes in his article?

The commodity-image system is advertisers using “representations of people who ‘stand for’ reigning social values such as family structure, status differentiation, and hierarchical authority (2).”

“The image-system of the marketplace reflects our desires and dreams, yet we have only the pleasure of the images to sustain us in our actual experiences with the goods (3)”.

“In short, the advertising image-system constantly propels us toward things as means to satisfaction. In the sense that every ad says it is better to buy than not to buy, we can best regard advertising as a propaganda system for commodities (4).”