TOW #20 Visual Text

Aaron Pieroni

3/2/14

Tow #20

            Two thousand thirteen has been a rough year for many politicians.  The looming national debt and nonnegotiable, split party governmental proceedings has left much to be desired from America’s politicians.  Many politicians are now expressing their will to make a change in Two thousand fourteen, by being more bipartisan, however political cartoonist Gary Varvel has something to say.

            Varvel, like many US Citizens and voters, are unhappy with the old American tradition of Politicians rarely falling through with what they preached during their political campaigns.   So Varvel uses this political cartoon to express his annoyance with American politicians.  To do this Varvel uses a broken anaphora to string together the “New Years Resolutions” of each political entity.  He first uses an elephant to signify the Republican Party and displaying their resolution “be positive” as a way to insinuate the negativity the Republican Party has displayed towards any of the Democratic Party’s plans.  The following phrase “be bipartisan” directly above a depiction of a donkey is another insinuation.  This time of the Democratic Party, who has been known to avoid any sort of bipartisanship with the Republican Party in the past year.  The preceding phrase “be truthful”, is directed towards Barrack Obama’s and his own Obamacare scandal which forced millions of people our of their current healthcare agreements into the unknown world of big government healthcare.

            The final phrase brings the anaphora home to Varvel’s audience, the common voter.  “Be smarter than to believe everything politicians say.”  This final phrase cements the idea that the audience is being lied to and that they should not follow another politician purely based on their humbling words and campaigns.   The New Year is a chance to not make the same mistakes made in the past and to start anew. For the American voter this means to not make the same voting mistake as last year.

            Gary Varvel is the editorial cartoonist for the Indianapolis Star where he has been creating cartoons since 1994.

 

http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/cartoons/2014/01/03/cartoonist-gary-varvel-new-years-resolutions/4312207/