TOW #25: Donut Picture circa 1948

Reading Goals:  find the message and find at least one device

Writing Goals: Write a concise essay, even if I just have one device (change it up a bit)

(Source)

Everyone loves donuts. Kids used to line up at our neighborhood’s local KrispyKreme just to watch the donut production line. They would start bubbling in the hot grease, and move along to the oven, where they were warmed to perfection. Then, the glaze machine would pour the sweet sticky syrup of gods over them and they would be left to cool. Kids loved those donuts for decades. The donut is often the symbol for obesity. Homer Simpson is always pictured eating donuts, and cops who don’t do much of anything are stereotyped to be always eating a donut. This picture, photographed circa 1948, is aimed to illustrate how the American donut hole is getting smaller, but the actual dough amount is getting larger through parallelism.

Parallelism between the donuts of the different decades illustrate the prevalent difference in dough-to-hole ratios. As one can see, the donut is the largest in hole diameter in 1927, but has the least amount of dough. As the years continue, the picture includes the same setup but you can see the donut start to change. This parallelism allows the viewer to clearly see the difference in the donuts throughout the years. This difference in donuts brings the readers attention to the fact that with each passing decade, the donut hole is getting smaller and the amount of dough is getting larger. This brings to a point the underlying message. It shows that throughout the years, Americans have wanted more dough and a smaller donut hole. This alludes to the obesity epidemic in America. This increase in dough might be one of the many things that exemplify Americans’ mounting greediness and overall inclination toward more food. Therefore, this parallelism allows you to see the evolution and difference in eating habits of Americans.

Parallelism in this image exemplifies the difference between donuts and donut hole size throughout the years, which in turn gets the picture’s underlying message across: more dough in our donuts is exactly why Americans are becoming fatter. We just don’t need the extra food.