An American Image

When looking through the section on photography in our book, I saw an image I had seen multiple times in my life. This image had often intrigued me, and every time I see it, my reaction changes. With time, experience, and knowledge my interpretation of this iconic photograph alters. Dorothea Lange has truly captured an immortal image.
A picture is worth a thousand words. So what is it Lange was trying to say? Our only hope of understanding Migrant Mother is to evaluate it in its historical context. This image is representative of a horrible time in our history, the Depression. What we are meant to see in this image is pain and sadness, an image to summarize the emotions and troubles of all America. I had written many papers on this particular image, some research and other creative writing, but all create the same thoughts; that this mother was struggling and her children without. This is perhaps one of the most powerful images of the last century.
When one looks on this image with the knowledge that this woman is only thirty-two, one sees what struggle has made of a family. The woman appears aged beyond her years, her children dirty and unable to look beyond their mother’s arms. Dirty, desperate, hungry, and tired, all they have left is each other. These children rely on this mother who gives up everything for their care. We cannot deny the fact that this image is one of a true heroine.
One of my assignments in the past was to create a story from this image; to take a picture and create a background and dialogue all from the perspective of a pencil. What else could I draw from this image other than the saddest scene you could imagine? I created a scene of a desperate mother searching to care for her hungry sons and crying baby. Without any prompting I made myself the pencil she would use to scribble her suicide note. This is how I read this image; that if this woman were to own a pencil, what else could she possibly use it for? What would she write? This is how this image affected me, and that paper is always what I recall when seeing this image. However, I said my perspective changes, so I say that I would add on to the story each time I see this image. There is always something more I see in this mother.