Close Reading: The Peanuts

     The text I chose for the close reading assignment was The Peanuts, one of my favorite comic strips. I chose to look at several strips from different months to see whether there were any similarities between them. My inquiry was: What do I notice about either the power/resistance situation or the real life issues in The Peanuts?
     The first thing I noticed was a real life problem. In this strip, Lucy is worried about over-population. My first thought on this was that by making the characters talk about certain problems, the author raises awareness about it in an entertaining way (it is a comic strip, after all!). Another problem I noticed was mentioned is religious intolerance. This is mostly brought up when Linus speaks of the Great Pumpkin. Because he believes in something Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the rest of them don't, he is made fun of or insulted. This reminded me of times in history (unfortunately, even now) when certain groups were bullied, insulted, and attacked, and sometimes even wars were started because they didn't share the same beliefs as other people. Again, by making this problem into an entertaining story, the author gets people to think about it more. He also makes people angry at that problem, and compassionate towards the victim. Who doesn't like Linus?
     The other part of my inquiry, the power/resistance situation, was also quite apparent in the comic. However, this does not mean that the power had to be obvious. For instance, there is a strip in which "Pig-Pen" offers Charlie Brown a piece of candy. Though this may not seem very powerful, he has the power to give a nice thing to someone else, which may cause them to like him more. In the same way, resistance does not have to be a full-out revolution or a dramatic argument. Resistance can just be saying "no." Resistance really only means not agreeing or going with the power, and a small thing like "no" can be very effective. There is also a kind of quiet power, one that implies what it can do if provoked. One example of this is when Snoopy decides to be mad at everyone, but as soon as Lucy walks by, he pretends that he was never doing or thinking anything. He knows what the consequences of angering Lucy will be, making her the power, and he prefers to not resist her, all this without Lucy saying a word. This shows that there does not always have to be resistance.
     As I was reading and analyzing this wonderful comic strip, I decided that exploring problems in a humoristic fashion is a very efficient way of doing it. While it may not fully explain them, it says just enough about them to interest the readers. Also, when problems are communicated in a very obvious, often depressing way, people often turn away and pretend it doesn't exist so as to not think of the horribleness of the situation. But when the problem is accompanied by a joke, it's less hard to face it and it is easier to think about it. The same goes for power/resistance: if there is a bully, or a leader who takes advantage of his/her position, a comic strip shows ways of resisting.