REPRESENTATIVE FORM AND THE VISUAL IDEOGRAPH - THE IWO-JIMA IMAGE IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

Much has been written about the iconic power of Joe Rosenthal's 1945 p hotograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. This scholarship, however, insufficiently accounts for the rhetorical function of this image as i t ir appropriated in an unusual number of recent editorial cartoons. B uilding upon rhetorical theory addressing repetitive form and visual m etaphor, we propose a concept of representative form. Exemplifying rep resentative fern, the parodied Iwo Jima image operates as an instance of depictive rhetoric that functions ideographically.