Political Cartoon

Taylor Lewis

Eng 111

10/7/13

Political Cartoon

On July 13, 2012 Barack Obama delivered a speech in Roanoke, VA. In this speech he became very aggressive towards hard working Americans, and went on to say “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” This comment frustrated many people and got a lot of attention. A political cartoon was made on this subject and depicts the situation very well. The three most important methods are humor, satire, and symbolism. These methods are used not only to exaggerate the point a bit, but to also show that the exaggeration is also a serious point that is trying to be put across in the cartoon.

The cartoon uses two different characters to portray the message. The hard working American and Barack Obama. The American is holding two buckets, one in each hand, the buckets appear to be heavy and one say hard work and the other says risk. Chain-linked to his ankles are two heavy boulders that say taxes and the other says regulations. The American has a very angry face as if he is annoyed with Obama and all the weight he is carrying. On the Americans back is Barack Obama saying “you didn’t become a success on your own, somebody else did that”. In the cartoon Obama is depicted as being much smaller than the hard working American is, and has very large ears. Also, Obama is well dressed in a suit and tie, with nice paints, while the American is in jeans, a shirt and boots. The type of clothes that each character shoes each of their statuses in society. The hard working American wears work clothes and doesn’t have a job like President Obama, where the president wears high class clothing, because for his job he needs to look as good as professional as possible.

The main theme of the cartoon is to depict how Barack Obama targets hard-working people, and business owners in the United States. To start with, the use of the one bolder that says taxes. According to Bill Losey’s website, Businesses with 50 or more...