American Gothic

I chose to interpret "American Gothic."  A lot can be taken from this picture when applying Molly Bang's theories and even some theories of my own. Judging by the positioning of the two people in the picture, I took from it that they are a married couple. Eye contact says a lot in this image. The man is looking directly at us, as we view it showing a clear sense of dominance. Where as, the woman's eyes are veered off in another direction, not making direct eye contact, thus exemplifying inferiority to her male partner and that clearly she is not the dominant one in this relationship. Her not looking directly ahead shows, to me, insecurity, and that she knows who is boss and that indeed it is not her. Molly stated that the top half of the picture is a place of freedom, happiness and triumph where as the bottom half feels threatened, heavier and sadder. This is definitely exemplified in this picture. The bottom half is where the couple is located and they look extremely unhappy. The top of this picture is surrounded by landscape and a nice house. Its odd too because Molly talks about how we feel more threatened by pointed shapes and more secure by rounded ones and I find this to be true as well. The pitch fork, for example, actually is a curvy shape and doesn't seem to scare me as a reader. I feel if it was more straight edged I would definitely feel more threatened as a viewer, but it doesn't at all scare me as a reader. I found this to be a very interesting picture to interpret and although I interpret it one way, I'm sure others may see it differently.