How do you analyze a political cartoon?

Analyzing a Political Cartoon

When analyzing a political cartoon, I think the best way is to first look at the images and think about what they different images mean, and the different meanings that they could possibly mean. One way to analyze the cartoon, and the meaning behind the cartoon, is to think of what the illustrator wanted the meaning to be.

The guide from WikiHow explained what to do when analyzing a political cartoon. The guide said what I explained in general, but it went further into detail concerning the smaller images. The steps from the online guide said - Look at the cartoon in general. Look at the smaller items in the image. Find and understand the context of the cartoon. Look for universal images that are depicted in the cartoon. (WikiHow) 

This guide taught me to first look at the bigger, centered pictures in the cartoon, and then to look at the smaller, more detailed images to further infer the topic of the cartoon. The smaller images, can have more meaning behind them which will help with the understanding of the context.

This cartoon shows three people; a Cuban, a Philippine native, and a Hawaiian native holding hands. The holding of hands represents an alliance and peace between the three countries. All of them are holding the American flag, this represents their friendship and gratitude to America for aiding them in the attaining independence from Spain. The caption below the image says "Hurrah for the fourth of July! We're coming in on independence day celebrations."

This cartoon portrays Uncle Sam working two horses with "justice" and "humanity" written on them, on the Philippine Field. This shows how America was working justice and humanity into the Philippines to help them be freed and independent. Uncle Sam is seen as a national symbol of freedom and liberty in US, and the use of this symbol shows the freedom that the US was helping the Philippines attain from Spain.

Philippines cartoon 1


philippine cartoon 2

Philippines cartoon 3

This cartoon illustrates Uncle Sam in the water, making his way towards Cuba. Because Uncle Sam is a national sign of freedom, this infers America's intentions of freeing other countries from Cuba and Spain. The cloud labeled war shows the progress of the war at this point in time. 

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/spanish-american-war-1898-granger.jpg