Rhetorical Analysis Of Herblock's Transport

Appealing to his audience, Herbert Lock (known as Herblock) visually creates “Transported”; a political cartoon including a man sitting on the moon, eyes towards a television. Across the moon the earth is surrounded by dark clouds of smoke and negative words. “Instead of working past problems at home, the world has its eyes set towards the stars, watching the moon...” (maddyaplangcomp.weebly.com) He is asserting his point of view of criticizing people for being very much oblivious to the unsolved major conflicts evolving around them.

The terminology and allegorical imagery depicted creates a sense of pathos. The title “Transported” embodies the connotation of overwhelming strong emotion that this political cartoon displays of the 1969 human perception of happiness for the first man walking on the moon. This serves as a distraction of humans being taken away from extremely serious issues by what was “the shining jewels on man’s achievements.” (nickbluhm.weebly.com). The words in the clouds of smoke “War”, “Poverty”, and “Prejudice” appeals to the fear and panic engulfing the earth. The words syntactically accumulate to drag the heavy expression of an apparent ominous problem.

His strong intense use of imagery portrays the easiness of humans to become enveloped with events like the Apollo 11 launch, and abandon the issues concerning their own environments.

Visually, the moon is bigger and brighter, juxtaposed to the words engulfing the earth with its bigger and bolder shade. The man sitting on the moon has his eyes glued on the television to symbolize the American people’s cynical attitude. Because the launch interested many individuals, they used it as a tool that prevented them from giving their full attention to the earth’s crisis. He ultimately challenges the conduct in which people choose to show during the time of two influenced

events.
In the midst of all the conflicts, many felt the need to be positive. The need to think of something other than pessimism. The need to turn the television on something other than a news channel discussing American domestic and foreign policy. The wrapping of negativity around the earth reveals human’s ideas shouldn’t be centered only on the moon and that better things could have occurred. “…money & attention given to space travel would be better spent on fixing the problems right here on Earth…” (maddyaplangcomp.weebly.com). Goes to say that the lightest place is often the darkest.