Grayson Perry - Emotional Man

Imagery

Language

Context

Structure

Figure

Hot pink colour

downturned mouth

confused and lost look on his face

Symbols

treasure chest in the stomach labelled "Long Buried Trauma"

hammer in foot labelled "Empathy"

dagger in throat representing "Misplaced Pride"

"Free Therapist with every figure"

"WARNING! FRAGILE"

fractal brain

a mind and a heart that has been unexplored and buried deep leads to loss of identity and peace in oneself

THINGS FALL APART

TFA - Because Okonkwo was not able to release himself from his violent perception of masculinity, he could not empathise with Ikemefuna in that moment nor take care of his own emotional state and therefore he struck out with his machete and cut Ikemefuna down.

Perry appears to be implying that every emotional man represented here requires a therapist, someone with whom they can sit down and discuss their "Long Buried Trauma". The adjective "every" highlights the extent of the problem as Perry sees it: all men, across cultures, continents and races is in need of this.

The capitalisation of this label as well as the exclamation marks serves three purposes:

  1. it fits with the sensationalism of the marketing purposes of the toy's packaging.
  1. it lends an ironic tone to the product as if shouting at something fragile were the coherent course of action (but of course Perry is saying that this is what men do all the time to each other)
  1. it highlights that this 'toy', this man, is liable to break at any time, and when it or he does, he has the dagger in his throat and hammer in his foot to deal with the situation.

TFA - Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna and refuses to discuss the pain that he has created inside himself and caused his family, especially Nwoye. This contributes to to the splitting of his family when Nwoye leaves to join the Christian missionaries which ultimately culminates in Okonkwo killing himself.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Grayson Perry is a British writer and artist who won the Turner Prize and is a regular commentator on British TV

These cartoons first appeared in his book 'Descent of Man' (2016)

The title is taken from Darwin's book of the same name published in 1871

Perry was positing that the model of man as emotionless, strong, provider is the root cause of such pain and suffering amongst men and wider society that causes men to have higher suicide rates than women worldwide

the format of the reimagined children's toys was used repeatedly throughout these cartoons, also representing 'DEFAULT MAN' and 'NOSTALGIC MAN'

DEATH OF A SALESMAN

hammer and dagger symbols in Perry cartoon echo the machete in TFA

men = violence = disconnection

Placement of symbols

knot of anger in the heart

We often link the heart to our feelings and anger is one of the most powerful feelings that we possess - it guides so many of our actions