Life, 1916-05-18 · page 17 of 48
Life — May 18, 1916 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon satirizes romantic courtship and mercenary motives. A well-dressed couple engages in mutual suspicion: he assumes she's plain but marrying for money; she thinks he's handsome but fears he's after her wealth. The joke reveals how both parties suspect the *other* of gold-digging—a common anxiety among the wealthy middle class about romantic sincerity. Below, three brief satirical pieces mock social pretension and logic: 1. **"Social Structure"** parodies pseudo-intellectual definitions by comparing society to an ant hill, then ironically concluding that despite everyone wanting to leave or exclude others, no one can actually escape—a darkly comic view of social obligation. 2. **"Point of View"** jokes that chickens getting voting rights would make eating eggs morally complicated—absurdist humor about democratic expansion. 3. **"The Empty Ring"** is a melancholic poem about a marriage where Love exchanges passion for Money, ultimately losing authenticity—critiquing materialistic marriage. All reflect early 20th-century anxieties about wealth, class, and authentic human connection.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
He: She: HE THINKS I'M Vi “LIFE: MIND READERS SHE CERTAINLY 1S PLAIN, BUT SHE’S VERY WELL orF! PRETTY, BUT MESITATES BECAUSE HE'S AFRAID I MAY THINK MIM AFTER MY MONEY Feeble Attempt to Define a Social Structure HAT is a social structure? It may be an ant hill or a democracy. It is usually composed of a mass of indi- viduals banded together for mutual dis- agreement. It is centripetal and cen- trifugal. Each individual would like to get out of it, but he doesn’t know how. Small masses of individuals, also banded together, would like to get out of it, but they don’t know how. Larger masses of individuals banded together would like to get rid of some of the smaller masses, but they don’t know how. Nobody wants everybody else to stay. Everybody doesn’t want anybody to stay. The result is that nobody can get rid of anybody. Hence the social structure. Example of a Point of View GGS are a wonderful provision of the Great Father to feed us, But who will dare to say so when chickens get the vote! U | 941 .io me i Y The Empty Ring OVE came singing down the valley, Golden honey in her hands: Life lacked time to dilly-dally, Squeezing money from his lands. Life, by all but gold forsaken, Wooed with money in his hands: Love had vanished, having taken All the honey from his lands. Richard Butler Glaenzer. comicbooks.com