The Washington Post Political Cartoon Analysis

Cartoons help the audience analyze the author’s ideas and messages in a visual aspect, rather than with words. This particular cartoon from The Washington Post contains both a visual message as well as written words with a message. In terms of the rhetoric triangle, these two aspects join together to help understand the subject that the speaker brings across as well as the speaker’s ideas and beliefs to the audience with the subject. In this cartoon, the author uses the senses of ethos, pathos, and logos to show their beliefs on the ideas Rosa Parks presented. In order to analyze the political cartoon, one must distinguish the use of ethos, pathos, and logos, where the cartoon first appeared along with its political leanings, and the interaction

Appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos requires the author to provide sense of emotions while providing statistical data in a credible and trustworthy manner. The cartoon and visual words provides the idea of ethos. In appealing to ethos for this particular subject, the reader must distinguish the credibility and trustworthiness in the author. The Washington Post published the political cartoon. America considers The Washington Post as the oldest daily newspaper. This newspaper won 47 Pulitzer Prizes to this day, the second highest number ever given to a newspaper. According to quora.com, The Washington Post readers appeal to unbiased reporting than in any other city newspapers. This shows the credibility in the Washington Post in terms of ethos. In order for the reader/viewer to view the

The author of the cartoon focuses on Rosa Parks outside of the doors to heaven. But, what did Rosa Parks do to earn this position? After working as a seamstress all day on December 1st 1955, Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus home. All buses in Montgomery required segregation on public transportation. Buses contained a line roughly in the middle to segregate whites from blacks. Whites, being the dominant race during this period, sat in front. Blacks filled seats in the back. On December 1st 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her front seat to a white individual. She did such an act because she stated “I was not physically tired, but tired of giving in”. Rosa, along with many other African Americans, found segregation laws extremely unfair. Their political leanings include the belief in the same rights and freedom for all. “We should have been free and given the same opportunities,” stated Rosa Parks during an interview with Scholastic. Since Rosa would not give her seat to a white individual, the authorities arrested her and placed her in jail. Following this act began the Montgomery Bus Boycott where mostly African Americans and some whites refused to use the Montgomery Public Transportation in order to show feelings towards segregation. Rosa Parks held a position as a civil right activist hero all around and continues seen