PEACE CORPS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

90cleanest and most attractive to the viewers. Figure 3.25 perfectly captures theorganization’s slogan and the call to nature. The “life is calling” catch phrase isdisplayed over the perfect fields of rice and a gorgeous sky. Life is indeed calling fromfar away, in a place where natural beauty has a new meaning.Figure 3.23 Figure 3.24 Figure 3.25 Figure 3.26Illustrations of nature frame other countries as perfect, creating the image of aworld far away where natural, untouched beauty conjures images of pre-modern peoplesliving in pre-modern conditions. Mark Meister talks about the importance of naturalbeauty in landscapes “because they act as a signifying system through which a socialsystem is communicated, reproduced, experienced, and explored. The visual images ofnature (landscapes, geographies) are essential to understanding culture.” 165In the case ofthe Peace Corps, nature functions as a way of calling Americans toward adventure.The Peace Corps’ ImageAs noted above, rhetorical images have three particular functions; they are: 1)constructed under the pressure of society, 2) ideologically bound, 3) narrative producing.The Peace Corps’ recruitment images are rhetorical in nature; they are produced out ofour own perception of the “other” and our perceptions of ourselves. These recruitmentimages are also politically charged. The photographs stand in for larger social claims,