Life — February 21, 1918 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 286 This page contains three distinct elements: an advertisement for "Plysmic" (a product associated with dining/restaurants), a book review for Edward S. Martin's "The Diary of a Nation" (war editorials from Life magazine), and suggestions for official postcards American soldiers in France could send home. The postcard suggestions humorously capture soldier perspectives—requests for food, money, tobacco, and romantic sentiments to sweethearts. The satire lies in contrasting the soldiers' mundane desires (onion soup, griddle-cakes) and homesickness with the gravity of WWI combat they're enduring ("fighting in the distance," "trenches"). The page satirizes the disconnect between wartime reality and soldiers' everyday longings, reflecting WWI-era American attitudes toward the military experience.