The lady in The Dead Soldier is holding a hand one shade of green away from full zombie. Painting rule #415: Never go full zombie.

When the symptoms are looked up on WebMD, it's a sign that he's either a witch, pregnant, or gangrenous. The clump of lace and ribbon at the bottom left is her hat. It's fallen to the ground in despair. In case it weren't absolutely clear, she's sad. The baby might look at the audience like Damien at the end of "The Omen", but he's sad too.

From the moment Wright of Derby hung this work at the Royal Academy in London, it was a smash hit. The painting also resonated with the English folk of the time. When available to the mass market as an engraving, it was bought up left and right by the very people living the scene depicted. It was such a moneymaker, he painted the scene several times. At least some of the popularity is credited to the nip slip, which the men folk, particularly, found very niiiice (read in the most affected Borat possible).

The overtly political nature of the work makes for an odd comparison with his other works featuring rolling landscapes, scientific advancement, and bird-slaughter. However, the recently concluded American Revolution left many widows, orphans, and wounded soldiers that the crown was basically leaving to rot. Wright was most directly inspired to paint this scene by John Langhorne's poem The Country Justice. Particularly the lines:

On pressing Want, on Famine's powerful call,
At least more lenient let thy justice fall.

Langhorne's given up on the government doing the right thing for vets, and others negatively impacted by war. Wright isn't far behind in that notion. And it's a tribute to his immense talent that governments no longer give a giant middle finger to the needs of vets, widows, orphans, and other members of our society so in need. Nahhhhht! (again, read in the most affected Borat possible).