doing violence to the image Does "doing violence to the image" in the following context mean "the alteration and transformation of the image" or "to violate (to destroy) the constructing elements and content of the image"? text: If the operations of the dream-work led Freud to the untranslatable navel of the dream, then it could be said that Stezaker’s operations of cutting into and removing parts from images parodically reverses this process, his process of subtraction almost doing violence to the image so that it can be liberated from its obsolescence and gain a new significance.