Satire

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Satire

• Biting Humor

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What Is Satire?

• Satire is a type of humorous writing that
  ridicules the shortcomings of people or
  institutions in an attempt to bring about a
  change.
• Satire may range from gentle mockery to harsh
  condemnation.

The people of those foreign countries are very,
very ignorant. . . . In Paris they just simply
opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to
them in French! We never did succeed in making
those idiots understand their own language. One
of our passengers said to a shopkeeper, in
reference to a proposed return to buy a pair of
gloves, Allong restay trankeelmay be ve coom
Moonday and would you believe it, that
shopkeeper, a born Frenchman, had to ask what it
was that had been said. from Innocents Abroad
by Mark Twain
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Purpose of Satire

• The purpose of satire is not only to make readers
  laugh but also to point out problems or flaws.
  The moral goal of a satire may be
• real-world change or reform
• honest re-examination of values
• development of new goals, attitudes, or
  perspectives

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The Tools of Satire

• To create satire, writers may use
• wit
• fantasy
• irony
• sarcasm
• hyperbole
• understatement

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Wit

• Satirists use wit to make readers laugh at their
  own faults. They hope that readers will recognize
  their weaknesses and correct them.
• Wit often combines incongruous ideas in a
  humorous and unexpected way.
• Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked
  and never well mended. Benjamin Franklin

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Fantasy

• Satirists use fantasy to create a world where
  common sense has collapsed. They call attention
  to social ills by presenting readers with a
  distorted view of the world.
• A satirists fantasy may be absurd or grotesque
  to elicit disgust or dread in readers.

She accuses me of being the cause of our
disaster! She says, with apparent sincerity and
truth, that the Serpent assured her that the
forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts.
I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten
any chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her
that chestnut was a figurative term meaning an
aged and mouldy joke. I turned pale at that, for
I have made many jokes to pass the weary time,
and some of them could have been of that sort,
though I had honestly supposed that they were new
when I made them. from Adams Diary by Mark
Twain
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Irony
Satirists use irony to point out discrepancies
between appearances and reality and to criticize
human weaknesses. They expect the reader to
understand from the context or tone that the
speaker is being ironic.
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Sarcasm

• Satirists use sarcasm to ridicule a subject.
  Sarcasm is meant to be hurtful.
• Sarcasm may use mocking praise to indicate the
  opposite meaning.

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Hyperbole

• Satirists use hyperbole to make something look
  ridiculous or worse than it really is.
• Hyperbole uses an incredible exaggeration, or
  overstatement, for effect.

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Understatement
Satirists use understatement to emphasize the
enormity of a problem.

• Understatement says less than is meant.
• Understatement can make us recognize the truth of
  something by saying that just the opposite is
  true.

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What Have You Learned?
Match the terms with their correct definitions.
hyperbole satire understatement
Writers use ____________ when they overstate
something to make it seem worse than it really
is. Writers use ___________ when they ridicule
the shortcomings of people or institutions in an
attempt to bring about a change. Writers use
_____________ when they say less than they mean.
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The End