More than Meets the Eye

Pictures are becoming a more efficient type of media to get the reality of the world out to the common man. Tomas van Houtryve’s photo depicts the communist oppression and secrecy in China. The first thing one would notice about the picture is the guard in the middle holding his hand up to the picture attempting to stop pictures from being taken of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. This presents the fact that the inner workings and source of Communism in China is very secretive and “forbidden” to the public. The large, wooden, heavily guarded, closed gates in front of every entrance present the fact that the government wants to keep their ideals private. The fact that one is not allowed to even take pictures of the city is absurd and shows the secrecy of such a government. The Communist uniforms and palace are laced in red and gold which in China stands for happiness, purity, prosperity, and good luck. This is ironic because Communism has most commonly been known to be more of a negative and oppressive type of government. This suggests that one of Communism’s strategies is deceitfulness and they try to make it appear as though the people of China are happy under the oppression of the Communist government. The next thing that stands out in the picture is the portrait of Mao (the founder of the People’s Republic of China) in the center of the palace. This shows the loyalty of the government of Communism and how much they idolize their leaders. Although on paper Communism presents itself to give a lot of power to the people, in reality they turn most of their power to their leader. The portrait exemplifies this statement. This picture was taken to show that there might be more than meets the eye when it comes to such topics such as Communism.