Geogaphic Scarves. "Look Dodolphe, this is really the last sacrifice I'll do for your education... if you still don't get your geography right, it means you are completely clogged up... this time I'll stick your nose into it. To start with, you'll just need to make sure during the first day to only blow your nose in Normandy.... I'll slap you in the face if you blow your nose in the Channel!," plate 89 from Actualités 1842

Honoré Daumier created this lithograph titled "Geographic Scarves" to be included in his series "Actualités." The pointing finger is prominent, a gesture seen across time. One thinks of Saint John the Baptist, or even the hand of God in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Here, the finger lacks that spiritual gravitas, instead embodying authority and control. The father's gesture is a comic take on a timeless posture of instruction and command. The imposition of knowledge, the threat of ‘clogged’ thinking, speaks to a deeper anxiety about intellectual inheritance. In psychoanalytic terms, the father figure looms large, projecting a sense of intellectual authority that can either guide or stifle the child's mind. The comical exaggeration serves as a commentary on the weight of expectations and the potential for education to become a form of oppression. The image resonates with us not merely as a snapshot of 19th-century pedagogy, but as an echo of the timeless struggle between knowledge and understanding, authority and autonomy.