man is holding onto the right arm of the man, clutching a purse with her right hand. Her head is turned toward him and she appears to be smiling. Much of our reaction to this ad comes solely from looking at these two individuals. More specifically, from the image of the man.The brightness of the man's shirt and the bags he is carrying stands in contrast to the black of the woman's dress and thus attracts our eye toward him. The fact that he is carrying so many bags, whereas the other individuals in the ad have at most one bag, also makes him the center of our attention. By using metonymy, we substitute the bags that the man is carrying to mean that there has been a day of shopping, a "shopping spree" perhaps. The paradigmatic relation between the man and woman, aided by our own codes of what the duties of both the male and female are in a relationship, leads us to assume that the bags do not belong to the man but rather, he is carrying them for the woman next to him. It would be one thing if the man were walking along carrying the bags by himself but once we see the woman next to him, holding onto his arm, our mind begins to draw its own conclusions. Another paradigmatic relation begins to form after we have made the assumption that the man is carrying the bags for the woman. The image of the ball and-chain along with the woman's grasp of the man's arm, leads us to believe that the man's presence here may not be a completely voluntary action. Rather, one may begin to associate this with the myth of commitment, of a man becoming "whipped". That is to say, the man is "suckered" in or "captured" by the woman and is then forced to do things that he otherwise would not do (in this case, spend the day shopping).The copy of the article supports the myth of commitment, or the lifestyle change that a man is forced to undergo once he enters into a relationship with a woman. It blatantly reads, "Your free time may have changed", referring back to ...
