Critical Analysis

Image 1- The Uncle Sam Range 1876

Image 2 - Daddy What Did You Do in The Great War? 1915

Both images have significant similarities and differences. 

Image 1, the poster for the Uncle Sam's Range, is an advertisement for a Range Oven. Unlike many advertisements, where the product is central to the image for the purpose of advertising it fully to the target market, this image relies more on selling an ideal to their audience. 

The image is heavily decorated in the colours and images symbolic of America, such as the carpets and curtains emblazoned in the stars and stripes of the country's flag, and the image of Uncle Sam, typically the symbol for the American Dream, is deliberately placed in the centre of the image reinforcing the sense of patriotism. This sense of patriotism is linked to an important image in the poster, the clock that shows the dates 1776 and 1876 signifying 100 years of American independence. 

 Meanwhile, image 2 also employs symbolism and idealism, but in a more subtle manner. As opposed to using the most iconic image associated with Britain, the union jack, the english rose is used more tastefully in the pattern of the curtain. 

Both images also centre on the patriarch, and the woman is either in the background(image 1), or totally missing from the poster (image 2). Both images date back to eras rife with sexism, and the woman being a secondary thought is a common theme within both, symbolising the males power, which links to the significant and collective power of America in poster 1, and in image 2 it creates a sense of optimism, signifying a more silent strength and power the potential army recruit possesses. 

The use of an older man in the army recruit poster, sitting with his young children surrounding him means that the image helps the target viewer to look into the future, which provides comfort and reassurance that if they were to join the army, they would live to have a family and grow old. 

The environment that the poster is set in, with the plush arm chair and the classily decorated living room also provides comfort and instills a sense of aspiration into the viewer, as it shows that this man has lived through the war and now has a comfortable middle class existence. 

This idea of a middle class environment also means that this poster reaches two audiences. One is a lower class man, who can look at this poster and see a brighter future if he joins the army, and the middle/upper middle classes, who are targeted through the only speech on the poster. "Daddy what did YOU do in the army" reaches those classes because it encourages them to not simply leave it to people less well off in society. 

The emphasis on ‘you’ , and the fact that his young daughter is asking it, furthers a sense of guilt. 

Image 1’s use of typeface is again very much iconically american - it’s bold and rendered in gold, a symbol of their wealth - and the poster includes a lot of text unlike image 2’s typeface which appears handwritten and was featured in many war posters of its kind. Image 2 also uses far less text, showing restraint and a subtlety that image 1 lacks.