Late October Cartoon Analysis

This cartoon is about the situation in the United States of America. The citizens in this cartoon are symbolized as people who are using the escalator, while the escalator symbolizes the trend that the country’s going through. The message that the author is trying to convey is that jobs are decreasing while debt is increasing and that the people’s saving are decreasing. Also there is no chance that there would be an American upward mobility. In a way, the overall message of this cartoon is saying that the United States’ economy is going in through downward or a negative slope.

To me, I think the main reason that the author intentionally created this cartoon is identify the problem that the country (United States of America) is going through and demands a positive solution to it from the government officials. I think that the reason why the author of this cartoon is using escalator as a symbolism of the country’s economy trend, is because escalator is a common and widely know tool that can be seen in every supermarket or a big retailer mall. The person who’s riding or using the escalator is the common people who live in a city or an ordinary citizen. The author makes sure to draw every type of person including the colored people, the ordinary family with children, and the old people. The reason why is because the message the author is trying to portray is that everyone is affected by it. The fact that there is a labeled on escalator with an arrow pointing at a specific direction creates a new meaning, a metaphoric meaning. The action that is going on in the cartoon is people riding up and down the escalator, which when combined with the labels and arrows, would mean that people is going through a decrease in job, a increase in debt, and decrease in saving.

My overall impression to this cartoon is that the message is clear and understandable. At first I questioned its purpose and the meaning of the cartoon, but as think about the current situation, the facial expressions of the people in the cartoon, and the labels I began to understand its meaning. I think the fact that the author uses escalators as a symbolism is a splendid idea, because everyone have seen or had used an escalator before, and so they knew what it is.