July 29, 1953: Schnozzle

One theme that Schulz returns to over and over is that of personal empowerment vs. the domination of others.

That is to say, here Charlie Brown is happy that another character has made a bigger mistake than he tends to, and takes delight in pointing that out. When Patty corrects him, he immediately retracts and feels sorry for himself. He goes directly from happy-extrovert-superior to sad-introvert-inferior, flipping along all three axises at once.

Charlie Brown comes to dwell most often in the later triad in the years to come. This seems to tie in with his "wishy-washy" character, although that is a term that hasn't been mentioned in the strip yet and won't be for some time. We'll discuss this more later.

How does one come to believe that it's called a "schnozzle?" Is this related to the slang term for a nose, a "schnozzola?" A quick Google search suggests it might be.