Focus on The North-West Passage and explain the Influence.
The painting was hugely successful at the time, and was very widely circulated in reproductions. Millais's son says he once saw a reproduction in "the hut of a Hottentot shepherd" in South Africa. Along with Millais's earlier painting The Boyhood of Raleigh it came to symbolise Britain's self-image as a nation of heroic explorers. Millais received a letter from the explorer Sir George Nares in which he said that the painting had had a powerful effect on the spirit of the nation.The painting was quickly referenced in cartoons. In October 1874 Punch published a pastiche by John Tenniel portraying Disraeli as the old sailor and Britannia in the position of his daughter. A 1915 cartoon by Joseph Morewood Staniforth entitled "The Dardanelles Passage" was captioned "it might be done and England and France can do it", referring to the Gallipoli campaign, which was then just beginning. John Bull and Marianne replaced the old sailor and his daughter.George Bernard Shaw was inspired by the doleful imagery of failure and frustration in the work  when he came to write his play Heartbreak House, which emphasises the pathos and impotence of its characters. The relationship between the main characters, Captain Shotover and Ellie Dunn, was based on the figures in the painting, and one scene partially reproduces the composition. In his last completed play, Shakes versus Shav, Shaw depicts the same scene mimicking Millais's painting.
Heartbreak House George Nares Shakes versus Shav John Tenniel The Boyhood of Raleigh Punch Joseph Morewood Staniforth Sir George Nares explorers John Bull Marianne Gallipoli campaign George Bernard Shaw