Faithfully Exploring Self
17
plain
2018-11-16T20:03:47-08:00
By: Katherine Schade
Kendall’s Faith already signifies quite an important topic for a big number of people just based on the title. With or without a religion, everyone has faith in one idea or another. Whether it be a strong and steadfast commitment to one of the many religions in the world or a strong and steadfast commitment to the idea of a specific government or education, ‘faith’ creates a specific feeling in everyone who reads it. Robert Kendall forces readers to contemplate their thoughts when it comes to the word faith right away with the initial slide in the narrative. Readers’ ideas about their faith sometimes conflict with the logic of everyday life and Kendall emphasizes this contrast by having the word logic physically bounce off of faith before the narrative poem officially begins. The use of first person “I” in three slides of the poem creates a sense of personal thought that makes the reader see Kendall’s opinion. The “I” then helps them reflect on their own opinion and how it may differ or go with the author’s opinion about faith and logic. The reader’s attention is also drawn directly to themselves and their values each and every time the poem continues as the colors of the words get darker and the meaning behind them gets deeper.
The slow pace in which the words appear or disappear in each slide gives ample time for the reader to debate and deeply contemplate what exactly each word means and how each word pertains to their faith or their logic. The mechanics and technology of the poem are clearly placed in order to allow for further exploration of self by the reader. The mechanics of Faith involve a strict inability to move along in the narrative until all of the words are in the right place. This restriction put in place to stop the reader from rushing through the story emphasizes each and every word in the poem. Thus, each word is more likely to affect the reader in analyzing themselves and their faith. The technology involved in this work also influences the readers deeper exploration of their values. The red and orange tones of the words in the beginning of the poem contrasted with the black and gray tones of the later slides of the poem may cause a further exploration of self based on which darker or lighter words strike the reader at the time they are reading. Kendall’s specific use of mechanics and technology as well as a specific beginning to the story, allowed Faith to express the theme of exploration of self with specific thoughts towards values and beliefs in non-logical ideas.
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