Semiotics, Binary Oppositions & Ideology (Miss Raji)

In this essay I am going to be analysing and deconstructing these two pictures refferring to semiotics, binary oppositions and ideolgy.

Between these two pictures, we can clearly see contrasts. in the picture of the pentagon (what's left of it) we get destruction, disaster and devastation, whereas in the statue of liberty picture, we get happiness, liberty and freedom, however the smoke behind the statue shrouding the city, also gives us devastation and disaster. in the first image, the "white house" is in the background, connoting authority, peace, and the white shows innocence, purity and safety. this is a huge contrast to whats in front of the white house. the white house is in the image, telling us that altough there is a major authority figure near, destruction can happen before your very eyes.

in the second image the "statue of liberty" is like a beacon of hope and security for the civilians. and in relation to the first image, the smoke and chaos is pushed to the background, and we are only focused on the statue, as it is litten up like its the center of attention. This tells us that altough, we may suffer with chaos and destruction, we can find hope and security within famous landmarks of the area, almost as it the monuments are deluding the victims of the disasters into believing that they are going to be fine.

i think the ideas behind these images is to make us focus on the unobvious thing - the white house and the statue of liberty. is this because they are wanting us to forget the disasters and destructions that took place?