Parody and Antecedent

Following swiftly on from yesterday’s post I did some research and found another Tenniel cartoon parodying his own work. Yesterday I posted my copy of Alice in Blunderland from 1880. This is ‘Alice in Bumbleland” from Punch in 1899. Here Tenniel is satirising Arthur Balfour, a future Prime Minister, who takes the place of Alice, burbling and bumbling his way through the London Government Bill, which would create the London County Council.

It’s interesting that he chose to use the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon again. Unlike “Alice in Blunderland” this cartoon is very clearly based on the illustration of Alice and the Gryphon listening to the Mock Turtle in Chapter 9. The biggest change is that instead it is the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle listening to a standing Alice. Here’s my copy of the original illustration from Alice.

I’d love to know exactly why Tenniel decided to return to Alice for this particular subject. Like Alice in Blunderland it does relate specifically to London – Tenniel himself was a born Londoner. Was he having a sly dig at Balfour’s so-called effeminacy by portraying him as Alice? Possibly, although it’s difficult to say.

While we’re on the subject of Tenniel, during my research yesterday I found this rather interesting antecedent of the illustration of Alice looking up at the Cheshire cat in the tree. It’s called Up A Tree. 

The subject is the Mason and Slidell case. Mason and Slidell were two emissaries sent from the Confederates at the start of the American Civil War to the United Kingdom. The British ship on which they were travelling was seized by Union forces, and the two men taken and imprisoned. This led to a serious diplomatic dispute between the UK and the Union, and had the original British response not been ameliorated by Prince Albert’s intervention, then the warlike nature may well have led to war between the UK and the Union. Lincoln issued an apology and returned the two prisoners. In the cartoon Lincoln is a raccoon who is in the sights of John Bull, the traditional allegorical representation of England. In the text Lincoln’s raccoon asks if John Bull is in earnest, and when he hears that he is, then he pledges to come down.

There are differences. For one thing the trunk of the tree is on the left f the picture in the Alice illustration, not the right. Having said that the cat and the raccoon occupy pretty much the same space and position in both pictures. The arch of the cat’s back though is very reminiscent of the Lincoln Raccoon. Also, the views vantage point is different. In the Alice illustration we are behind Alice, while in the cartoon we are to an extent looking down on the front of John Bull. There’s a forest of trees in the cartoon, while the space below the branch in the illustration is clear because it is occupied by text in the book.

Nonetheless, the similarity is quite clear. Tenniel had an incredible visual memory and didn’t need models to work from, so in all likelihood he drew on his memory of his own cartoon from just a few years earlier.

All of which reminds me that I haven’t yet made a copy of Tenniel’s Cheshire Cat with Alice sketch. Hmm. Watch this space.