Vce Language Analysis Essay Example

Tattoos have recently become increasingly popular in youth, due to the hidden meanings and symbolism that they are endowed with. Helen Day’s opinionative blog entry, The Power of Ink, asserts that the significance of tattoos have diminished due to the fashionable aesthetics that tattoos project. A highly casual, yet acknowledging tone characterises her blog entry, which is predominantly catered to young Australian readers who are interested in receiving a tattoo. Accompanying her blog entry is a number of comments which both support and criticise the new phenomenon of tattoos. Poignantly complementing her article is an image of Ta Mako tattoos, a Maori form of body art, and the front cover of the written work “No tattoos before you’re thirty by San De Brilo.
Day commences by positioning the reader to acknowledge the past history of tattoos, and the significance they held before their original meanings were lost. She states that there were a sign of “deviance” and “criminality”, words which are infused with rebellion, distaste, and shock. By this effect, she conveys that tattoos have been historically looked down upon over the course of history. Consequently, the reader may seek to view those with tattoos in a less positive light, as they are associated with iniquity and feudalistic values. Day continues by showcasing the historical stigma which tattoos have carried since ancient times, demonstrating that they have “almost always meant trouble” from “the Greeks, and then the Romans”. By elevating the historical aspect of tattoos, readers may feel a sense of newfound interest and hence may become increasingly attentive to Day’s contrast between the ancient significance of tattoos with its present, lacklustre symbolism. She describes such tattoos as signifying “ownership and brutality”, which connote a sense of barbarism and inhumanity to the reader. Therefore, Day may further the ideal that tattoos have been instrumental in the propagation of relatively cruel acts