The Wasp — 1913 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of The Wasp Page 11 This page contains no cartoon or visual satire—it's narrative prose from a story titled "The Wasp." The text introduces **James Burnham**, third son of Sir Walter Burnham of Berkshire, and describes his father as a hard, temperamental man obsessed with marking his possessions with the family heraldic device. The passage focuses on Sir Walter's compulsive need to brand everything he owns—from valuable silver plate engraved with full coats of arms to farmhouses marked with a four-barred hurdle device. This appears to be character exposition establishing James's family background and his father's controlling, aristocratic personality as setup for the narrative. Without seeing other pages, the satirical target of this story remains unclear.