Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?
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Other · File:Daddy, what did You do in the Great War? - Original.jpg · Public domain · Catalog record
The pins
Context
For discussion
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Loaded question The caption The question assumes the father did something and will be asked about it. There is no answer a man who stayed home can give his daughter that does not shame him.
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Appeal to fear The father's face The fear sold here is not of Germany but of a future self: the look of a man who cannot meet his child's eyes. The poster asks the viewer to imagine being him.
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Transfer The history book The daughter reads the war as history, and the son plays it with toy soldiers. The children are made the judges of the father's record, and their innocence lends the verdict its weight.
Issued by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee in 1915, before conscription, when Britain still relied on volunteers. A prosperous father sits in an armchair after the war, his daughter on his knee with a history book, his son playing with toy soldiers at his feet. The question is the child's, the discomfort is the father's, and the viewer is invited to imagine his own future shame. Its publisher, Arthur Gunn, is said to have enlisted after seeing it.
- The poster never mentions Germany, duty, or danger. What is it asking the viewer to fear?
- Why is the scene set after the war rather than during it?
- The son plays with toy soldiers. What is that detail doing?
See also
Same era, or the same techniques.
