Download http://www.salemhistory.net/images/war_18.jpg This political cartoon

http://www.salemhistory.net/images/war_18.jpg
This political cartoon shows how in the beginning of World War two, Nazi
Germany and the rest of the axis nations were basically dominating the Allies on all
fronts. The allies were not very prepared at all. In this cartoon the allies are depicted as a
little kid, almost like a baby equipped with nothing but a sling shot and a rock. The allies
are depicted this way because at the beginning the allies were weak, the U.S. wasn’t
officially involved in the war yet, and allied countries just weren’t as militarized as Nazi
Germany and Japan. On the other hand the Axis powers are portrayed as a giant with
three heads. This giant is equipped with ships and boats and all kind of guns. It looks
very intimidating. The three heads are the heads of the leaders of Germany, Japan, and
Italy. I noticed that Hitler’s head is in the middle of the three. I think that this was done
on purpose because Hitler and his German army were the strongest of the three. Also in
the cartoon it has a book open that says “David & Goliath” on the left page and on the
right page it says “…And David slew the giant”. The author included this because its
saying the allies, David, were the underdogs and outnumbered but they still defeated the
almighty axis powers, Goliath. On the bottom it says just wait till this little feller grows
up. This is saying that yeah the axis powers are pushing the allies around now, but when
they get their armies completely ready to go, the axis powers will be in for a rude
awakening. I think this political cartoon is very accurate with the depiction of the allies
and axis alliances. The author really used the symbolism of David and Goliath to show
just how lopsided this war actually was and how the allies rose above the odds and
defeated these evil powers.
http://shs.umsystem.edu/famousmissourians/presidents/truman/images/Dispatch1947Nov
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This political cartoon is meant to represent the struggle that President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt went through when he was tryin to decide on whether to enter the war
in Europe or to not enter the war. It portrays FDR as a small man faced with two huge
question marks that contain his two options written on them. They are huge in size
compared to him. I believe the person who made this cartoon did this on purpose to show
that he was just a single man and he was being forced to make a huge decision. It really
puts emphasis on the fact that we were in the great depression and couldn’t really afford
to go to war but also that he had to consider that we couldn’t afford to let britian fall
because if they did then Hitler would just target us next on our own soil. Also if you
notice one of the question marks is bigger than the other one. I think the author did this to
show that the one question was in fact more important and need to be taken care of. The
question mark that is bigger says “Can we really afford not to help Europe”. This just
show happens to be the question that we went with and it was why FDR decided that the
United States should in fact join the war in Europe. This really represents how important
our allies in Europe really were to us. One other thing about this cartoon is that it doesn’t
show that the man has made any decision yet. Which leads me to believe that FDR was
very indecisive at the time when he was faced with this decision that he had to make. I
only know what decision he made from prior knowledge obviously. I think that this
cartoon does a good job at recognizing just how important of a decision this really was.