War propaganda posters were used throughout both World Wars and the Cold War. Different countries used them to different effect such as Germany using them to condemn the Jewish population and ostracise them, the West using them to present the Soviets as the foreign enemy and the Allies in the World Wars to create a sense of nationalism. This sense of nationalism is what is created in this War poster that a semiotic analysis will be conducted on. The colours, uniform, the line of men, lack of women and the text will be analysed in depth to understand this poster in terms of the war and what it meant for the Allies.

Whilst this is a British poster, the uniform worn by the soldiers was very similar across all the Allies. The Triple Alliance …show more content…
Emphasis on the word ‘you’ is made in it capitalisation and bold red writing. The red creates a call to urgency and the term ‘you’ sticks out from the entire poster. it makes the poster personal to the viewer as it targets the individual not an entire group. By signalling ‘you’ out, we feel a sense of guilt that it is up to us ourselves to do our bit and join the army. Moreover, whilst we know that especially once the war continued on it was increasingly easy to join the army as medical requirements lowered and age gap widened, the term ‘reserved’ makes it seem as though that they are not going to just let anyone in to the army. ‘reserved’ coupled with ‘fit man’ creates a binary of pride and masculinity that you have achieved the requirements of becoming a soldier. The heroic ideal is created and the easiest way to achieve it is to join the army and become a soldier.

In conclusion, this poster is very effective in achieving its goals of making the male onlooker feel as though it is his duty to join the army. The Allies used this sense of pride in their soldiers to create a sense of nationalism, which put their country behind them making them win both World Wars. Patterns were found in this semiotic analysis where the signifier was male and war related with signified the sense of masculinity, which ultimately created the ideology that you were doing a disservice to your country if you did not join the army and full fill your duty of being a good ally