My Interpretation of the Flower

For starters, here's the picture of the flower that we're analyzing:


In this picture, we can see a contrast between the five stalks in full bloom, those that are withering and others which have already withered. The five stalks in bloom are given salience in the picture as they are placed in the center of the whole picture, the withering ones by their sides, while the withered ones are situated at the bottom of the picture, and thus, not given as much prominence.

The denotation of this naturalistic image may just be that of flowers in NIE, but everyone's interpretation and connotation is different due to our individual backgrounds and experiences.

To me, the picture seems metaphoric, as it seems to imply 'Survival of the Fittest', where the strongest survive, and the rest just wither and fall by the side. This is in tune with the competitive nature of the education system, not only in NIE, but all over the world, as only a small number of us will be able to attain excellent grades and graduate at the top of the class, while others have to settle for lower grades, and some may even not be able to graduate and just wither.

The colour of the flowers (white) also seems to signify eliteness, as those who do better in life are generally white-collared workers, who perform semi-professional office, administrative, and sales coordination tasks, thus linking back to the idea of 'Survival of the Fittest'.


This is just my interpretation of the picture, so please feel free to give me your comments:)