British and German Cartoons as Weapons in World War I: Invectives and Ideology of Political Cartoons. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach (review)

Abstract

858 Reviews whereas Forster 'discovered' India. The geographical point of intersection that exerted fascination on both writers was India. Calcutta, which Duras firstvisited aged seventeen en route to France, helped lay the imaginative foundations for her India cycle, referred to by Yves Clavaron as 'la "constellation" India Song' (p. 41). But if the India that absorbed her, as she asserts in Les Parleuses, was not the land of the maharajas but Tlndepresque caricaturale de la lepre et de la faim' (p. 139), Forster's contacts were different.He firstwent to India as the guest of Syed Ross Masood, the dedicatee of A Passage to India who belonged to the Muslim elite, and returned later at the invitation of a Hindu maharaja. These strong, instructive contrasts provide Clavaron with the infrastructure for a lucid comparative study that connects intelligently with contemporary postcolo? nial debate about colonial literature and its legacy. His methodological premiss is to explore the fictional production of that era historically. Within the geopolitical and cultural frameworks that he recontructs, he singles out Forster's uneasiness working on A Passage to India, citing a letter to Masood in which he protests: 'When I began the book I thought of it as a little bridge of sympathy between East and West, but [. . .] my sense of truth forbids anything so comfortable' (p. 48). Troubled by this complex cultural encounter, Forster works to distance himself from his contempo? raries' politicized readings of his novel. Hence the appeal in The Hill of Devi to a universalist discourse that privileges the Indian earth and sky. 'The Life to Come' admittedly provides Forster with the opportunity to criticize what he sees as an arrogant Catholic Church pursuing its own branch ofthe civilizing mission. Yet Clavaron skilfully shows Forster's European humanism as itself failing ultimately to allow Indian culture its alterity by adhering to Western aesthetics. If Forster's preferred route is irony in the face of what he frequently labels 'muddle' in A Passage to India, Duras regularly opts for violent satire. Thus the world of finance is denounced in Un barrage contre le Pacifique as 'la crapule de cette engeance blanche de la colonie' (P- 75) and colonial Saigon houses the Mecca for colonial financiers. Clavaron also deftlyexplores the motifs of misogyny, sexuality, the family narrative, and the missing father in relation to his two colonial authors. Royal Holloway, University of London Edward Hughes British and German Cartoons as Weapons in World War I: Invectives and Ideology of Political Cartoons. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach. By Wolfgang K. Hunig. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. 2003. 242 pp. ?23. ISBN 3-631-50211-7 (pbk). Punch and Simplicissimus, best known for their debunking of social behaviour, also included trenchant political cartoons, especially during the First World War. Wolf? gang Hiinig examines 325 examples to reveal parallels in invective against the enemy. Through the interplay of the sketches, the headings, and the captions, differentpat? terns of humour, irony,and sarcasm emerge that either support or contradict prejudices and stereotypes. Using the methods of cognitive linguistics, Hiinig focuses on the condensation ofcomplex ideas into a single image and into a related metaphor. The abstract or unfamiliar is made both visually and verbally concrete, often by reference to well-known cultural examples. Figures such as John Bull or Kaiser Bill become metonymies when they represent nations; emblems such as the British Lion or the German Eagle provide rich sources forthe use of discourse spoken by commentators to express invective or ridicule. Hiinig develops a convincing theory of mental spaces and blends. These interconnect and create an artificial world where the viewer or reader is fascinated and then manipulated to accept its premisses. The cartoonist strikes a balance between MLRy 99.3, 2004 859 'downright aggression and humorous insinuation' (p. 26) in order to appeal to feel? ings of superiority, relief, or incongruity. The scenarios may become totally absurd, but they provide the necessary distance to make the propaganda acceptable. Hiinig differentiates between scenes that are everyday, non-combatant military, war, counterfactual , or metonymic, and further subdivides these as communicative situations, internal interactions between sketch and caption, and communicative situations that interact with the captions. Such categorization and the...