This document discusses how political cartoons can provide useful insights into past attitudes and perspectives. It explains that cartoons use techniques like exaggeration, symbolism, labeling, analogy, and irony to convey persuasive messages. It then provides examples of how each technique is used, such as exaggerating physical characteristics to demean authority figures or using symbols to represent larger concepts. The document advocates analyzing cartoons by considering their origin, context, elements, message, purpose, point of view, and reliability.

2. What can we learn from a political cartoon?
When trying to find out about experiences of
people living in the past, images such as
etchings, sketches, cartoons, photographs and
paintings from time to time can be very
useful. They are primary sources and have
limitations, but they are also important
sources of attitudes, fears, values and
propaganda.

3. Persuasive techniques used in cartoons
 Exaggeration
 Symbolism
 Labelling
 Analogy
 Irony

4. Exaggeration
 Depiction of physical characters
 How does this position the audience?
- Depicts the character as foolish
- Demeans power and authority
- Take the characters less seriously
- Doubt their power and authority
 Strengthens argument at hand

6. Symbolism
 Takes a simple or well-know object and creates them to
stand as a larger concept or idea
 Illuminates the foolishness of the ideas surrounding
the issue

8. Labels
 Often cartoonists lable specific elements
 Signifies their importance
 Identifies what the cartoonist wants the audience to
understand
 Includes names of people, places, objects
 Can include speech bubbles and desrciptions

10. Analogy
 Comparison between two things that are not alike
 Complex issue that can be related to a more familiar
concept and the ideas that are related to that concept
 Helps the audience understand what values the
cartoonist may be trying to depict

12. Irony
 The difference between the way things are and the way
things are supposed to be or are expected to be
 Positions the readers to see the way that things
actually are, despite what they’re expected to think or
how they’re expected to react

14. Document Analysis
Origin
Where is the source from and who created it? Is it a cartoon or painting from a
newspaper, a sketch from a book, a painting from a gallery or a photograph on a
website?
Context
What was happening at the time the document was created? This is a description
of the important people, values, policies and events at that time.
Elements
What are the parts of the document such as the caption, symbols or language used
to get the main ideas across to the reader?
Message
What is the meaning of the document? What does the author want to say to the
audience?

15. Purpose
Why was the document created? This could be used to
reinforce ideas from the time, convince people, promote
political ideas or describe an experience.
Point of View
What were the attitudes and beliefs of the person who
created the document? This is the perspective of the author,
which can be biased towards or against a person or idea.
Reliability
Can the source be trusted as truthful? Who was the author?
What was the purpose of the document? Is it biased? What
are its limitations? What gaps exist? Has the document
been censored, falsified or exaggerated?

16. Your turn
 Using the worksheet provided, analyse the cartoons
 The table provided in the worksheet will help you to
analyse historical documents, both primary and
secondary sources, to decide whether the sources are
useful in providing information for your period of
study

17. Briand,
French
Prime
Minister
Lloyd-George,
British Prime
Minister
What is
this
referring
to?
What does the horse represent?
Why is the
cart up-
ended?
What is meant by the
caption?
Why is Lloyd-George
holding a shovel?
Why is
Briand
holding a
whip?
Why is a
shovel left
here?
‘Perhaps it would gee-up better if we let it touch earth.’
Cartoon 1