Throughout the years
of government in both the United States and internationally, politicians have
had a reputation for being corrupt and greedy, acting more in the interest of
themselves than that of the people. Though this is a generalization and not true
of all public servants, there are certainly those that have skewed public
addresses and falsified their values in order to gain support from the people.
Bernard Schoenbaum satirizes this in a political cartoon in the New
Yorker.
Schoenbaum, who has
drawn over four hundred cartoons for the magazine, illustrates this statement
by depicting a politician sitting at his desk. An American flag stands in one
corner of the room, and a man is standing before his desk, with an apologetic look
on his face. The politician, who might be a fictional representation of the
president, is holding a bunch of papers that seem to have come from the man in
front of him. The words below the cartoon, which are meant for the politician,
read “Say, who the hell’s been writing this stuff? It comes perilously close to
the truth.”
One of Schoenbaum’s
purposes is to make the assertion that some politicians’ speeches are not very
truthful and are often composed to mislead the public. His second purpose is to
be humorous and entertain his audience. This is achieved through the
politician’s statement, which is exaggerated. This text’s immediate audience
would be readers of the New Yorker, who have most likely been exposed to many
political cartoons, and his extended audience would be politicians, who might
take this a different way. Due to the context of the New Yorker, however,
which has an abundance of cartoons, the audience would likely be able to
recognize the lighthearted tone of this text. This political cartoon was
effective in its purpose, deriving humor from Schoenbaum’s statement about
politicians’ morality.
No comments:
Post a Comment