2 Courting the colonies
-
Robert Dingley
Abstract
This chapter details how Punch cartoonist Linley Sambourne imagined key colonial encounters (in Africa and Samoa) in gendered terms. Particularly in the case of Samoa, Sambourne used allegories of romantic (and not so romantic) courtship and conquest, drawing on themes found in the novels of H. Rider Haggard, travel memoirs, and the like. The relevance of such imaginings is discerned not only in the context of the largely male-dominated enterprise of High Victorian imperialism, but also the all-male fraternity of the Punch editorial table, and Sambourne’s own personal sexual politics. An amateur photographer, he used the nude frequently in his work, creating ‘mixed mode’ cartoons that blended allegorical figures (e.g. John Bull, the ‘African Venus’) with caricatures of real-world statesmen (e.g. Bismarck, Cecil Rhodes).
Abstract
This chapter details how Punch cartoonist Linley Sambourne imagined key colonial encounters (in Africa and Samoa) in gendered terms. Particularly in the case of Samoa, Sambourne used allegories of romantic (and not so romantic) courtship and conquest, drawing on themes found in the novels of H. Rider Haggard, travel memoirs, and the like. The relevance of such imaginings is discerned not only in the context of the largely male-dominated enterprise of High Victorian imperialism, but also the all-male fraternity of the Punch editorial table, and Sambourne’s own personal sexual politics. An amateur photographer, he used the nude frequently in his work, creating ‘mixed mode’ cartoons that blended allegorical figures (e.g. John Bull, the ‘African Venus’) with caricatures of real-world statesmen (e.g. Bismarck, Cecil Rhodes).
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xvi
- Acknowledgements xxi
- 1 Introduction 1
-
PART I: High imperialism and colonialism
- 2 Courting the colonies 31
- 3 ‘Master Jonathan’ in Cuba 66
- 4 ‘The international Siamese twins’ 92
- 5 ‘“Every dog” (no distinction of color) “has his day”’ 134
-
PART II: The critique of empire and the context of decolonisation
- 6 The making of harmony and war, from New Year Prints to propaganda cartoons during China’s Second Sino-Japanese War 161
- 7 David Low and India 192
- 8 Between imagined and ‘real’ 216
- 9 The iconography of decolonisation in the cartoons of the Suez Crisis, 1956 242
- 10 Punch and the Cyprus emergency, 1955–1959 277
-
PART III: Ambiguities of empire
- 11 Outrage and imperialism, confusion and indifference 305
- 12 Ambiguities in the fight waged by the socialist satirical review Der Wahre Jacob against militarism and imperialism 334
- 13 The ‘confounded socialists’ and the ‘Commonwealth Co-operative Society’ 362
- 14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire 393
- Index 426
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xvi
- Acknowledgements xxi
- 1 Introduction 1
-
PART I: High imperialism and colonialism
- 2 Courting the colonies 31
- 3 ‘Master Jonathan’ in Cuba 66
- 4 ‘The international Siamese twins’ 92
- 5 ‘“Every dog” (no distinction of color) “has his day”’ 134
-
PART II: The critique of empire and the context of decolonisation
- 6 The making of harmony and war, from New Year Prints to propaganda cartoons during China’s Second Sino-Japanese War 161
- 7 David Low and India 192
- 8 Between imagined and ‘real’ 216
- 9 The iconography of decolonisation in the cartoons of the Suez Crisis, 1956 242
- 10 Punch and the Cyprus emergency, 1955–1959 277
-
PART III: Ambiguities of empire
- 11 Outrage and imperialism, confusion and indifference 305
- 12 Ambiguities in the fight waged by the socialist satirical review Der Wahre Jacob against militarism and imperialism 334
- 13 The ‘confounded socialists’ and the ‘Commonwealth Co-operative Society’ 362
- 14 Australian cartoonists at the end of empire 393
- Index 426
