Satire and Humor

1. Satire and Humor JUST ANOTHER ASPECT OF TONE…BUT EVENMORE FUN!

2. Active/Initial reading When reading something challenging and potentially satirical, practice some active reading skills…have a conversation with the text during your initial reading Talk back to the text, ask questions of the speaker • These are likely to be places where you want to say: REALLY, do you honestly think this is a good idea? Do you really think this way? Are you stupid? • Pay attention to the speaker and note places where he/she seems just a little “off,” or places where his/her logic seems fuzzy. This should lead you to incongruent thinking: • This will lead you to places where what is being described doesn’t fit with the speaker’s attitude toward it, which leads you to the devices of satire.

3. SATIRE Definition: the ridicule of any subject in order to lower it in the reader’s esteem. The goal is always to reform.

4. Some common satirical techniques: • Exaggeration: To enlarge, increase or represent something beyond normal bounds so that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen. • Caricature: • Burlesque: example: a character who is portrayed as uneducated and foolish, all of a sudden starts using very sophisticated diction • Hyperbole: “to wait an eternity”; “I’ll love you until the seas go dry.” • Litotes: “not bad” = good

5. A few more Satirical techniques • Incongruity: To present things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to its surroundings. • Oxymoron: jumbo shrimp, cruel kindness • Metaphor: “Success is a bastard as it has many fathers, and failure is an orphan, with no takers.”  • Irony:Used to create humor through an expression of the opposite of what is meant, intended or expected. • Sarcasm: From the Greek meaning “to tear flesh,” http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/422659/january-07-2013/blood-in-the-water---bill-o-reilly-s-racial-insensitivity

6. And yet, some more… • Parody: To imitate the techniques or style of some person, place or thing in order to ridicule the original. For parody to be successful, the reader must know the original text! • Reversal: To present the opposite of the normal order. Reversal can focus on the order of events (serving dessert first) or can focus on hierarchical order (a child making all the decisions in a family) • Wit: Intellectually amusing language that surprises and makes a pointed statement • Juxtaposition: placing dissimilar items, ideas, descriptions together or side by side for comparison and contrast • Allusion: Satirists often rely on our knowledge of historical and political allusions.

7. And finally, the persona • The concept of a “persona” is often essential to our understanding of satire. • Persona: The term derives from Greek and means mask. • When a satirist creates a persona, he/she is often naïve and rarely expresses the beliefs of the writer. • It is this discrepancy between writer and speaker, between logical and illogical thought, that creates the incongruent thinking typical of satire.

8. Describe Stephen Colbert’s persona…

9. True Satire is always about more than laughs • Satire is at its heart concerned with ethical reform. It attacks those institutions or individuals the satirist deems corrupt. • It seeks a shoring up of the audiences standards. • In general, it attacks types—the fool, the boor, the adulterer, the proud, rather than specific people.

10. Two Kinds of Satire Horatian Juvenalian A more harsh, bitter form of satire. The subject is subjected to contempt. Sees the vices of the world as intolerable. Uses large doses of sarcasm and irony. Audience is asked to respond with indignation. • A gentle, sympathetic form of satire • Aims to correct with sympathetic laughter • Tends to ask the audience to laugh at themselves as much as at the characters • It “holds up a mirror” so readers see themselves and their world honestly.

11. Wait a minute… Sarcasm and irony: what’s the difference?

12. Sarcasm: When the speaker appears to be praising something, but is actually insulting it.

13. Expressions in which an attitude is conveyed by its opposite are considered ironic. Verbal Irony: “A great day for a walk.” Situational Irony:

14. Close reading reminders • Annotate those things that strike you as surprising, significant, or that raise questions as you read. • Be on the look out for incongruity—details, descriptions, reactions that don’t fit what is actually being described • Be on the look out for the elements of analysis and in particular those devices of satire: hyperbole, understatement, sarcasm, and irony • Look for patterns in the things you’ve noticed—look for repetitions, contradictions, similarities. • Ask questions about those patterns—especially how and why

15. Diction and the Persona in “Modest Proposal” Solar year Value Lawful occupation Raiment Calculate Reckoned Breeders subtract

16. Swift’s objective “Was not to spew venom, but to strip empty pride and grandeur and to show men what they are, and to teach them what they aught to be.” William Hazlitt, 1818

17. A personal favorite Humor

18. Elements particular to humor • Object of laughter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTAh3Gxe1oQ • Incongruity (what violates expectations) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg4QEIDgnc4 • Safety and goodwill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUpzAw5Kw7M Flashes of insight/spontaneity (the old is new) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k37HOam7E-g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Jg7pvVzKk

19. Don’t forget—humor is just another function of tone! So that means… Diction Imagery Details Language Syntax

20. Empire Falls and Last Picture Show • How did Russo/McMurtry create humor? • Which technique(s) do you think were most effective? • Give an example or two.