on the child’s shoulder in western (i.e. civilised) dress proposes a two-fold message. First, that Japan is not wholly accountable for its actions. Second, a warning to all Americans who are culpable enough to befriend Japan, “There would be a price to pay.” The accusation of under-development was often articulated through a simian metaphor. As Dower tells us, “... the depiction of groups and individuals by nonhuman forms or symbols is not in itself inherently demeaning. The American eagle and British lion are ample proof to the contrary.... What we are concerned with here is something different: the attachment of stupid, bestial, even pestilential subhuman caricatures on the enemy, and the manner in which this blocked seeing the foe as rational or even human....”8Due to issues of style and his own tastes Geisle treatment of this correlation was mostly comical and fairly unassertive as in Image 9 where Japan — drawn as a monkey - is simply following orders. But even the style of Dr Suess cannot hide the danger presented by Japan in Image 10. Here the metaphor does not concern a monkey but the effect is the same. Despite possessing a human’s head and western clothes Japan is still essentially displayed as a monster.In the work of other artists the simian comparison often takes on a more menacing tone. In this phase the Japanese are presented as something worse than an irresponsible child, they become irredeemable beasts. Their inferiority is not merely a measure a maturity. They become a race consisting of mere animals that “deserved to die.”9Americans considered this dehumanisation of the Japanese as an appropriate reaction to atrocities that occurred both before and during the war, such as the Nanking Massacre and the treatment of prisoners of war.The degree to which the Japanese were dehumanised as an enemy was reflected in battlefield metaphors. American soldiers often referred to...
