This supernatural cartoon about reflection alludes to racist jokes about people turning white when shocked or frightened. But perhaps it is more complex than this suggests. The white reflections are caricatured and rendered uncanny, while the black subject is portrayed with relative realism and sympathy. And what is the spectator’s role? Structurally, does the spectator take the position of the ghost? Or should we see the viewer as having a privileged rationalist gaze – they know the ghost is ‘unreal’, can see that it is.
Dalziel after Alfred Thomspon, ‘Lecture on Bogueys’, illustration for Tom Hood (ed.), The 5 Alls (London: Frederick Warne, c. 1866). Dalziel Archive Vol. XXI (1866), British Museum reg. no. 1913,0415.182, print no. 474.
By Permission of the Trustees of The British Museum. All Rights Reserved © Sylph Editions, 2016