Although I realize we exhausted much of the Anti-Napoleon material in class Thursday, in reviewing the points covered in the past week, these pictures still especially stood out to me. However redundant it might be, I have to go back to this stuff. The easiest observation one might make is that the caricatures offer a glimpse into the mental landscape of the time--the opinions, fears, and complaints of the common people.
In looking through these little windows into the thoughts of general people at the time, I find myself wondering how these caricatures change my opinion of Napoleon, how they alter my preconceptions I might have brought with me from previous contact with him and the time period in other classes. I think this question might have been posed in class Thursday, actually.
What I find interesting is that for the most part, the caricatures really do not change my thoughts. Through lecture and discussion in class, I know more than I did before about Napoleon now, but the general ideas I had about the guy still hold--they are reinforced by the caricatures even. This is a little disappointing for me. It makes me feel as though I am not digging deep enough, that I am only on the surface. But then I think of the span of time that separates us and Revolutionary France. There has been plenty of time for the world to get a good idea of what a terrible person Napoleon was. So at least to that extent, it makes sense that the caricatures would not alter my opinions, only reinforce them.
I am more interested in how common people during this time would have reacted to seeing such pictures. There is probably a good chance that the images were representative of a large chunk of people’s silenced opinions, and that when they saw them they had to suppress a smile. But surely there were also people that completely ate up the façade Napoleon put up. Surely there were people that did think him a grand military leader, a potential savior for a country in trouble everywhere one turned.
Public opinion today is such a different beast. Newspapers, broadcasts on television, radio news programs, the INTERNET--it is almost impossible for us to hear of anything in popular or political culture without quickly having dozens of different things telling us how we should process what’s going on, where we should align our opinions. In revolutionary France, I am genuinely curious as to what kind of effect these caricatures (and obviously there were many) had collectively on the people. Time has magnified Napoleon’s reputation as a “bad guy,” but in his particular time period, did such caricatures make any difference? If so how and to what end? Or were they beside the point, taken in and then disregarded by the populace with little thought of any implications? Maybe I am asking questions that do not especially matter at the end of the day, but curiosity compels me to wonder.
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I have the same questions you do about how this pictures may have impacted the thoughts of people at the time not only in France but around Europe. I would have to believe that in France the following of Napoleon was so strong by a large number that these images would not have had much negative effect here. However other countries who were at war with Napoleon may have seen the negative images as the true Napoleon. Think about the images generated during WWI and WWII such as images depicting the Nazi's or the Japanese as rats and evil men. Here those images led to American's rallying behind our troops and agreeing with these images where as in Germany and Japan people probably were not effected by the images. However, during Napoleon's time, an effect like this would all depend on how popular the images were and how readily available they were to the public.
ReplyDeleteI would think that the caricatures had great affect on the common man during that time period. If you take a look a the lack of education, thus basic reasoning skills (this obviously doesn't apply to everyone, but certainly many) would allow for public opinion to be swayed rather easily. I would say that Napoleon's reputation is just as conflicted now as it was then, though. No doubt, he committed some truly evil and powerful acts, but by all accounts he was also an inspiring leader whose men loved him and who had the capacity to control half of Europe at one point. I don't think he faked that, just that it speaks to the duality of his persona.
ReplyDeleteThe question of works vs their reception is an interesting one that an entire school of cultural historians have attempted to define and explore. You are correct to recognize that there is often a break-down between production and reception. People do not always see or 'read' a cartoon or text the way they are 'supposed' to. Thus, just because royalists sought to depict Napoleon in a particular way does not mean that people will see him (or the image that same way.)
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