Satire

1
Satire

• The act of ridiculing human vices and follies for
  the purpose of improving society.

Do you realize that all great literature--Moby
Dick, Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, The
Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The
Iliad and The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, The
Bible, and "The Charge of the Light Brigade"--are
all about what a bummer it is to be a human
being? Kurt Vonnegut
2
Satire

• The sting of satire is meant to cure us of our
  pretensions and blindness. The satirists
  premise is that when an unacceptable situation is
  exposed to ridicule and laughter, it cannot last
  very long.

3
The Range of Satire

• Playfully amusing. Uses gentle laughter and
  understanding to create change.

Biting, critical, and scornful. Uses darker
techniques to create change. The satirist seems
outraged by the current situation.
4
Light Satire

• Andy Dick playfully pokes fun at George W. Bushs
  oratory skills and also the American people for
  following him anyway.
• The message comes across as Lets elect someone
  who sounds moderately intelligent next time,
  though Andy Dick does not seem outraged by this.

5
Dark Satire

• A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children
  of Poor People in IrelandFrom Being Aburden to
  Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them
  Beneficial to The Public by Jonathan Swift
  (1729).

6
Dark Satire

• Jonathan Swift published A Modest Proposal in
  1729 as a pamphlet. At this time, Ireland was far
  poorer than England. Most people born there were
  employed as agricultural laborers or tenant
  farmers. The landowners were paid from the
  produce of the land, at rates which the workers
  could rarely afford. This ruling class were
  usually not born in Ireland, nor did they live
  there permanently. If the laborers lost their
  work, there would always be other poor people to
  take it up. Starvation was as common as in the
  Third World today.

7
A Modest Proposal Paragraph 1

• It is a melancholy object to those who walk
  through this great town or travel in the country,
  when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin
  doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex,
  followed by three, four, or six children, all in
  rags and importuning every passenger for an alms.
  These mothers, instead of being able to work for
  their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all
  their time in strolling to beg sustenance for
  their helpless infants who as they grow up
  either turn thieves for want of work, or leave
  their dear native country to fight for the
  Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the
  Barbadoes.

8
A Modest Proposal Paragraph 2

• I think it is agreed by all parties that this
  prodigious number of children in the arms, or on
  the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and
  frequently of their fathers, is in the present
  deplorable state of the kingdom a very great
  additional grievance and, therefore, whoever
  could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of
  making these children sound, useful members of
  the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the
  public as to have his statue set up for a
  preserver of the nation.

9
A Modest Proposal Paragraph 3

• But my intention is very far from being confined
  to provide only for the children of professed
  beggars it is of a much greater extent, and
  shall take in the whole number of infants at a
  certain age who are born of parents in effect as
  little able to support them as those who demand
  our charity in the streets. I shall now
  therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I
  hope will not be liable to the least objection.

10
A Modest Proposal Paragraph 4

• I have been assured by a very knowing American
  of my acquaintance in London, that a young
  healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most
  delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food,
  whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled and I
  make no doubt that it will equally serve in a
  fricassee or a ragout.

11
Satire as a formula

• While there is no exact formula for satire, there
  are a few elements that must be present.
• 1. Target What is being ridiculed?
• 2. Wit or humor - Though a good laugh is not the
  ultimate goal, it is crucial in attacking the
  target. This is often accomplished with dark
  humor or absurdity.
• 3. Change Unlike an ironist who merely points
  out faults in a humorous way, a satirist expects
  change.

12
Devices of Satire

• Although these are more often used in ways
  non-satirical ways, they are the devices that a
  satirist might use for a humorous effect.
• Mockery
• Parody
• Sarcasm
• Verbal Irony
• Understatement
• Hyperbole (Exaggeration)
• Caricature

13
Satire or Not?

• Teachers of children in the United States of
  America wrote this date on blackboards again and
  again, and asked the children to memorize it with
  pride and joy 1492. The teachers told the
  children that this was when their continent was
  discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of
  human beings were already living full and
  imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That
  was simply the year in which sea pirates began to
  cheat and rob and kill them. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Target American education Humor
Mockery Change Debatable
14
Satire or Not?
Target Vietnam war movies Hollywood Humor
Parody mockeryChange Not really. The purpose
of this movie is to make us laugh, not to change
the way things are done in Hollywood.
15
Satire or Not?

• Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to
  throw up? Like great public schools, or health
  insurance for all? Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Target Anti-socialists Humor Verbal Irony
(saying one thing and meaning its
opposite)Change By ridiculing this view of
socialism, Vonnegut hopes to change negative
opinions of socialism.
16
Satire or Not?

• http//www.theonion.com/content/video/dominos_scie
  ntists_test_limits_of?utm_sourcea-section

Target Dominos Pizza fast food eating habits
of the American public Humor Hyperbole
(exaggeration )Change Debatable. Is the video
intending just to make us laugh at ourselves or
change our behavior and eat healthier?