The Wasp — 1896 — page 27: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon depicts two women in period dress engaged in conversation. The caption identifies them as "Mrs. Mulligan" and "Mary Anne," with dialogue about seeing a friend's mistress at the theater and covering her embarassment. The satire targets Victorian social hypocrisy—specifically the awkward situations arising from public encounters between respectable married women and their husbands' mistresses. The humor lies in the absurdity of the excuse offered ("I covered her embarassment"), which itself exposes the social pretense that such scandals could be simply ignored or hidden through polite convention. The cartoon mocks upper-class society's willingness to maintain fictions about infidelity rather than acknowledge social reality.