Life — March 11, 1915 — page 20: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a satirical cartoon about social exhaustion after hosting a formal reception. The drawing shows a standing man in formal evening wear and a seated woman in an elegant gown, positioned in what appears to be an upper-class interior with chairs visible in the background. The joke centers on the wife's advice: her husband should remove his forced smile (literally) and rest, after which he'll "be yourself again." The satire targets the artificiality of high-society entertaining—the performance and fakery required to maintain proper appearances during formal social events. The cartoon suggests that the couple's "real selves" are fundamentally different from their public personas, and that socializing in this context is an exhausting performance rather than genuine interaction. This reflects early 20th-century middle and upper-class anxieties about social performance and authenticity.