Rhetorical Analysis of Bumper Stickers: An Atheism Essay Example
Frequently, drivers find themselves catching bumper stickers in the corner of their eyes. It’s not often that they pay much more attention to them than a quick glance, but the sticker could be of very high importance to the person who placed it there. The sticker in question is very short and unassuming. It is just one word, “Atheist”, but written in a very vague and hard-to-read font. The fact that the sticker is hard to read has many implications, and it’s important that we determine why the author may have put the sticker there in the first place, and why the sticker may be of interest to drivers.
Religion is a delicate topic to many people, and as such, it is seldomly questioned or discussed openly. Had the sticker been more easily comprehensible, it would imply that the author is invoking readers to question their own beliefs, since Atheism is the lack of a belief. The topic of Atheism with most people is often a very heated subject, so it isn’t discussed often. However, since the sticker is difficult to read, the author may have intended for it to only be readable by other Atheists to make himself identifiable by other Atheists.
The author could be unaware that the sticker is difficult to read, placed it so that it would invoke people of other religions, and other Atheists, to have discussions about their own religion, and perhaps promote the idea of Atheism. Had the sticker been more easily readable and been placed somewhere else, like a cup or backpack, this conclusion would be more viable. However, it was on the back of a car, which means most readers will be other drivers on the road, and not people the author can discuss the topic of the sticker with.
As stated previously, the topic of the sticker itself is inherently sensitive. This goes for the rest of the world, but especially in the location of the sticker, on the back of a car in Alabama. With the majority of people from Alabama being religious, the sticker could be taken as malicious by people who are against Atheism. The fact that the sticker is difficult to read could imply that the reader doesn’t want the majority of people to know the message, and it could simply be that the author is prideful of his beliefs, and wants to share them with the rest of the world, even if it appears to be provoking to most readers.
The sticker has many possible implications, especially considering the area where it is posted, the audience who views the sticker, and the difficulty in reading the sticker itself. With the sticker being on a vehicle, and its main audience being drivers of other cars, it leaves much ambiguity as to the exact intention of the author. However, we can conclude that the author is interested in Atheism and is attempting to invoke a conversation about their personal belief.
