Life — December 1931 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "What To Do With The Wolf At The Door" This four-panel cartoon by T.G. Cooper illustrates the idiom "the wolf at the door"—meaning poverty or financial hardship. The sequence shows a person in a house confronted by an actual wolf: 1. **Top left**: Wolf scratches at the door 2. **Top right**: Person attempts to fight it off with a stick 3. **Bottom left**: Person appears to be hiding or fleeing 4. **Bottom right**: Multiple figures (appearing to be soldiers or officials) are called in to deal with the threat The accompanying editorial text discusses Christmas charity and addressing social welfare needs. The cartoon satirizes inadequate individual responses to economic hardship, suggesting that serious social problems require collective institutional action rather than personal defense alone.