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Analysis As stated previously, space and the definition (or lack of definition) of that space is key to interpreting Bil Keane's work. Here, Jeffy is literally in a corner and surrounded by the past. Jeffy is Pandora. He has opened the chest of drawers; a box filled with boxes. A box made even more ominous by the asymmetrical handles affixed to the drawers and grinning at us. The picture Jeffy holds is theoretically of his father. But is it really? One can make out the shape of someone, but there is no way to verify who that person is. The other pictures are just as ill-defined. The picture by his back shoe, if enlarged, seems to be that of a motorcade. The pictures in the drawer are eerily reminiscent of a grassy knoll. Jeffy's shoes are untied with metaphorically loose ends. As you've no doubt figured out by now, this a searing indictment OF the Warren Report of the assasination of President John F. Kennedy. Jeffy retrieves the picture of JFK out of the "blackness" of the photo album, an album that purports to tell the "true story" since pictures never lie. The chest of drawers seems to hover above the floor, just as the Warren Commission hovered above the law. Thus, as Jeffy asks his mother, whom one can imagine as holding the scales of justice, "Mommy, how did Daddy get so little", the reference is a direct assault on the shrinking of the truth by the Warren Commission. The facts are
in front of him. They just don't add up. |
