Oil as narcotic or as medicine: the DISEASE metaphor in political cartoons on energy crisis

Abstract

Abstract The present paper explores how the issue of the current energy crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 and Ukraine war was constructed by political cartoons. Adopting Critical Multimodal Metaphor Scenario Analysis, this paper focuses on the disease metaphor scenario, one of the most recurring scenarios in political cartoons on this topic, and specifically emphasizes how the method of treatment, one of the structural elements in the scenario, is represented. The analysis reveals that two predominant scenarios constitute the representations of the method of treatment: narcotic scenario and medicine scenario. They differ in entailments: one frames fossil energy as detrimental narcotic while the other frames it as therapeutic medicine. By means of the two scenarios, these cartoons convey strong criticism of the major involvers in the energy crisis, namely, the E.U., Russia, and the U.S. The cartoons make full use of the dynamic interplay of visual and/or verbal metonymy, metaphor, and narrative to elicit associations, assumptions and evaluations in the viewers, helping facilitate understanding and constructing a view of the crisis reality. The present analysis sheds light on the way cartoonists reshape the public point of view in the framing of specific event(s).