Life — August 11, 1921 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page contains "The Prude's Alphabet," a satirical poem by Don Marquis mocking Victorian social conventions and propriety. The cartoon above illustrates one entry—a woman's sunburned knees—treating this as scandalous. The satire targets excessive prudishness: the poem humorously presents topics that would have mortified proper Victorian society (bare knees, cosmetics, questionable women, vampires, weather discussion) as ridiculous to worry about. Each letter entry ridicules some aspect of overstated modesty or social anxiety. The cartoon shows well-dressed figures reacting with apparent shock to Helen's sunburned knees—a trivial physical consequence presented as a major social concern. This visually embodies the poem's central joke: the absurdity of extreme prudishness in modern (1920s) life.