Part A: Cartoon

1. Who is the composer?

Kevin Robertson

2. What is the source of this cartoon?

www.beyondthepunchline.com

3. What is the context of this cartoon?

The cartoon is showing OJ Simpson, a very famous football running back, actor, and
convicted felon. He is using blood to write his book and so he called “If I did it...”
which is a very iconic line that he said when he was presented in court. The caption
gives more context by saying that he is recounting the events the night that he
murdered friend and wife.
 4. What is happening in this cartoon?

The cartoon is showing OJ Simpson writing a book using blood. The book is
called “If I did it...” which is considered by people to be a confession that he killed
his wife and her friend. There’s a bloody knife that is stuck to the table, and there
is also blood everywhere on the wall, table, lamp, book, and even him.

5. What perspective(s) is shown?

There is a perspective shown by the caption of the cartoon. It said “O.J.

Simpson's new book "If I did it..." was considered by many to be his confession...
partly because it was written in blood.”. The caption is explaining to the readers
that OJ is writing a confession about his murder of his wife and her friend after he
just killed them, that’s why there are still blood stains everywhere.

Another perspective which is represented by the speech bubble of him saying

“Hmmm…”. There’s a use of onomatopoeia in this speech bubble, he is not
actually saying anything, he is just making a sound. The sound describe that he
is recounting his murder to write on his book.

6. What makes this cartoon effective? Explain. (Give both visual and language
examples.)

I think the most effective part of the cartoon was because it’s depicting OJ Simpson
which is a famous celebrity and his catastrophic event. However by taking a deep look
into the cartoon, I can also see some visual and language techniques that are making
this cartoon so effective to the audience.

First, talking about the visual techniques. It shows the beauty and value of the text.
Some examples that were used in it are individual drawing style, stereotype, symbol,
body language.
The unique drawing style helps the audience recognise Kevin Robertson’s signature
work. Also, his style can make the audiences feel for its simplicity and nostalgia. Every
single artist has their own unique style of drawing which could imply how the artist is as
a person.
About the stereotype, the features that Kevin drew OJ is very resembling. His brown
skin, short hair, wide forehead, and the bloody scene and objects around him effectively
gives people the image that it’s him. Also, the bloody knife is a major symbol showing
that he is a cold hearted murderer.
The final visual technique that i’m going to talk about is his gesture. In the cartoon, it’s
shown that he is sitting on his table having his right hand on a feather pen preparing to
write his confession. While his left hand is on his lips thinking of words to write his
murderous confession. The use of gestures in this text define what and how about the
character’s feeling and action.
The effect of all of these visual techniques is that it helps build the image to the whole
cartoon, it introduces the characters and the scenario that is happening in the entire
cartoon. It’s a very important technique that most cartoons, poems, songs, or artistic
works should and do have.

Second, the language techniques are the soul of the cartoon. It keeps the audience
containce and brings more context to the cartoon. Signature, caption, and speech
bubble are some examples of this technique.
The signature is a mark of the author after they are finished with their work. It’s a fancy
and fast written way of writing of the author’s name. The effect of it is to say that it’s a
marked sovereignty work of someone so people can’t take it and make benefits out of it.
The signature usually comes with the date that the work was finished.
The way that the author uses his caption is far different then what I’ve seen from
anyone else. Usually it is to summarise or give more context to the cartoon. However,
Kevin Robertson's use of caption is quite long, similar to what a news report caption
would look like. Still, the use of caption is very effective in giving the audience more
context of the cartoon.
A very nice touch of onomatopoeia in the speech bubble is also used as the language
technique of the cartoon. The speech bubble shows that OJ is only making a sound that
is “Hmmm…”, meaning that he is thinking. Thinking about what to write next for his
confession of murder. The use of onomatopoeia in the speech bubble seems pretty
simplistic and meaningless but really, without it the viewers wouldn’t know or would be
confused about what he’s doing. He could just be looking at something on the wall while
writing his book.
Language techniques are often looked over. Nobody really looks at the word of the
cartoon without the visual being the major tribute to the cartoon. But without the
language techniques, no matter how amazing the cartoon looks, it would be very bland
without it. As previously mentioned, it’s the soul of the cartoon. Without a soul, a person
can’t really live.

In conclusion, the visual and language techniques used by the author are really
important contributions to the cartoon. They both morally support each other to make
the cartoon appetising to the audience. For example, the use of visual techniques by the
composer makes it eye-catching to the audience. On the other hand, the language
techniques distribute the visual by adding words or generally called information to give
more meaning to the cartoon. Those two aspects are what make the greatness of the
cartoon. And from that, I enjoyed it!

Part B: Written text

7. What type of text is this?

The type of text of “Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst” is a song.

8. Who is the composer?

The composer of the text is Kendrick Lamar.

9. What is the source?

Kendrick Lamar - Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst

10. What is this text about? Give a brief summary.

The text is a 12 minutes and 3 second song with two parts to it. The song uses various
techniques such as poetic, imaginative, narrative, emotive, and even language features.
Also, there are two parts to the structure of the song. Adding on, the first part has quite
a song but uneasy feel while the second part is more powerful and gravitative to the
audience.
In the first part, the text contains two stories and Kendrick’s perspective about the
stories he told. One story is about a person that was one close to him that admired his
career as a rapper and with the wish to be mentioned in one of his songs died from the
gun-violence that he couldn’t escape. The other one was about a woman complaining
that Kendrick didn’t have any right to write about her sister being an institute in his
previous work then later became an institution herself. After those two stories were told,
he was rapping about his heart out all the feelings of concern for death. He also referred
to his mental health as those stories are making it hard for him to face himself in the
mirror or symbolistically, facing reality. Another thing that he said was that he has some
concerns of what would have happened if he didn’t find his fortunate fame for his rap
career.

The second part has a more dark and aggressive tone to it. Now, the voice that was
used for this part is aggressive but not because of rage but because of regrets.
Kendrick represented himself as his own people living the life of murder, temptational
sins and thoughts of suicide. Then later, that person that Kendrick was taking character
is rethinking about their past sins and wants to drown it over “water, holy water” which
means that they want god to forgive them.

I have alway loved Kendrick Lamar storytelling songs. It gave me a vivid scene of what
is going on in a dangerous place such as Compton but with such an emotional impact
on the people there. It’s a scene of the environment that I have or may never witness. It
feels new, it feels entertaining, it is powerful, and it’s provoked my understanding of the
world that I’m living in.

11. What perspective (s) is shown in this text? Give examples to support this.

There are three perspectives that I can see in this song. The first one is the perspective
of a guy in Kendrick’s hometown that is about to be caught by the gun-violent. The
second one is the perspective of a woman that complains to Kendrick rapping about her
institutiative sister and ending up being one herself. The final one is Kendrick’s
perspective about his concern in life.
● The guy that Kendrick represented in his first verse started off by saying “I woke
up this morning and figured I'd call you in case I'm not here tomorrow, I'm hoping
that I can borrow a piece of mind…”. He knows that he is about to die, he knows
he couldn’t do the miracle that Kendrick did that is escaping the violence of his
hometown. So he reached out to Kendrick to say his last few words before the
gun shots at the end of the verse occurred. The gun shots definitely means that
he was murdered by gun-violence. Though, the way it was executed makes it
seems like it’s a normal thing that happened.
● The woman character’s perspective is that she is just a normal black woman in
the context, so is her sister, so is being an institute. Though, she “doubted (the
author’s) ignorance” to talk about the fact that her sister was an institute,
specifically on the track Keisha's Song (Her Pain) by Kendrick Lamar on his
previous album, Section.80. Then on the next line, it reveals that she was also
one of her sister’s kind by saying that it’s “completely (her) future…”. At the end,
she seemed to be forgotten, when she said “Don’t ignore me…” and then the
verse slowly fades out to the chorus, proving that the acknowledgement of her
existence is also fading out with time.
● The third and most impacted perspective of the whole song was the author’s
perspective about death as he thought about those two stories of his own people.
At the start of the verse he is giving an image of himself looking in the mirror and
asked himself “Is he really scared of passing away? If it’s today,...”, he is
concerned about death, he doesn’t know when it will happen, he doesn’t know
why it will happen, and he definitely doesn’t know what will happen after. Though
he doesn’t seem to be afraid of it as he had witnessed it many times before. That
leads on to the first half, just Kendrick contradicting his life and wherever God
would forgive him for his sins to bring him a good afterlife. The other half when
he said “And you’re right, your brother was a brother to me… Did I put enough
work in?”, it's him responding to the two people he was rapping about on the
previous verses of the song, so is he hating on the new generation that was
greatly impacted by society, and so is he even talking about how his legacy
saved his people and brought justice to them.
 12. Identify three language techniques that make this text effective. Explain why
they are effective.

a) Metaphor

Surprisingly, the song is so advanced in using words that a simple technique of

metaphor is not even often used in the song. Most of it is around the middle point of the
third verse of the first part of the song. For example, “My imagination is surely an
aggravation of threats…”, which means that his thoughts formed an imagination that
made him worried more about his life, that as if he should be aware of getting killed
every second. Now for the effect of the technique, it is to compare his imagination to
threats, the mind of himself is making him worried more and more the more he thinks. It
is a great technique to effectively value the object’s matter to the audience by
comparing it with another thing.

b) Repetition

Most songs usually repeat the same few lines to make the song more catchy and so is
this song. In the chorus we can see “Promise that you will sing about me” being
repeated several times in the first part of the song’s chorus. For one, it is to remind the
audience that that’s the reason why the title was named “Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of
Thirst”. Second, the meaning behind it is that Kendrick is making a promise with his fans
or people who are close to him that they will sing about him when he moves on to the
afterlife. Now, the effect of the technique is to make the song more memorable to
listeners and it is basically the caption of the whole entire song, morally. This technique
is very necessary to make a song. Without it, it may not be as successful.

c) Rhyme

Rhyme is such a commonly used technique in songs. Every bit of the song contain a
rhyme to it like “In case I’m not here tomorrow, I’m hoping that I could borrow” or “A
peace of mind, I’m behind” even “...on what’s really important my mind is really
distorted”. The effect of it is to make it easier for the author and the audience to sing to
it. It is literally the basic of a song, if someone ever makes a song, there’s rhyme, and
that’s what makes it so intriguing to listen to.