Sunday, January 11, 2009

Alliences Political Cartoon

This famous cartoon is from World War I, but it also relates to our Great Powers Game. The main visual elements are contrast, and connections. The contrast between the people depicted in this cartoon are tremendous. They are of different races, economic statuses, and they portray different emotions. This is because they all represent different countries troughout the world that fought in WWI. For example, you can tell the group on the lower right represents Turkey. They have darker skin tones, middle eastern attire, and they have a hukkah with them. They greatly contrast the Germans, or the Russians. Another visual element connection. This is represented by the hand shakes (alliences) between several of the countries. Some alliences are forced, like in the upper left coner, and other are mutual, like the upper right hand corner. Some people have been refused alliences, like the lady in the bottom left. The hand shakes depict alliences, which is a visual element. For that reason, I believe alliences are the focus of this cartoon. I believe that the cartoonist might be trying to portraying the flaws of alliences. There are alliences on connecting everyone, even though some people have multiple hands. which means, in a war, some of the alliences would have to be broken. It also shows the people in the middle are the most powerful, gaining the weaker alliences to attack eachother. So, they are just using their allies to defeat their enemies, like the two sides of the cartoon. This shows me, the cartoonist might be portraying the flaws of alliences. Personally, I think the cartoonist could have had someone bending over backwards to recieve an allience from the powerful men. I also think they could have included someone being out numbered, and possibly forced, to ally with a group. This cartoon definitly relates to our Great Powers Game. Alliences were being formed, broken, strengthened, and weakened during the whole game. They are all different countries, with different needs like the people in this cartoon. The men in the middle have more hands,which could mean they are more powerful, or decieving to their allies. There also seems to be two sides of this cartoon. But, that didnt work because it just turned into a big mess of alliences. This is how it played out in our game as it seems to be playing out in this cartoon.
Image: http://mrcoyle.edublogs.org/

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