It was a picture of a little boy, seen from the back, standing on the fence outside the National Zoo, under a sign that reads “Zoo Temporarily Closed。” That picture has been the visual flavor du jour for at least 24 hours. “The iconic image of the shutdown,” it’s been called, and people have shamed the government for breaking a child’s heart。

照片里的小男孩儿，背对着镜头站在国家动物园的大铁门外，门上贴着一个通知，“动物园暂时闭馆”。这张图片已经成为网上最受喜爱的照片之一。它被称为“美国政府关闭的讽刺景象”，人们纷纷谴责美国政府闭馆让孩子们失望了。

The shutdown has stopped medical research, called off food inspectors, and held up veterans’ benefits, and we are disregarding, even slighting all of these things if we presume to sum up the gravity of the situation in this single image of a child。

由于联邦政府关门，医学实验中止了，食品检察员制度被取消了，退役士兵的福利减少了。如果我们认为这张小男孩的照片就可以概括事件的严重性的话，我们显然忽视甚至无视了上述事实。

It helps that the iconography is simple: kid in an animal hat, zoo bars, Love Locked Out. It also helps that you can’t see the child’s face. The juxtaposition of sign and small body and quasi-narrative situation invites our projections. We assume that the child is forlorn, or that the picture is staged (it’s not)， or that the photographer was seeking to make a political point。

图片中的意象很简单，这有助于我们理解：带着动物形状帽子的小孩儿，动物园大门上的栅栏，被拒之门外的孩子的心，我们看不到孩子的脸，这一点也是有用意的，路标、小男孩和不言自明的场景相互并置，引人联想。我们猜想这孩子独自一人， 猜想这张照片是人为设计好的，猜想拍摄这张照片的人想要表达某种政治观点。

There is, it’s true, something scary, or sad, about this picture。

这张照片里有某种可怕或感伤的东西。

We've all heard the tragic stories of the unintended consequences of the shutdown — cancer patients denied treatments; military families who can't bury loved ones; mothers who can't feed their babies — but none will probably spread as far and wide as this kid in a bear costume being locked out of the National Zoo。

我们都听说过了政府关闭政策无意间引起的不良后果：癌症病患无法接受治疗;烈士家属不能将烈士遗体安葬;母亲无法照顾自己的孩子——但上述这些都不会像这张带着小熊帽子、被国家动物园拒之门外的小男孩的图片那样广为传播。