Introduction to Satire

1. Introduction to Satire The savage art of mocking or ridiculing society to inspire reform

2. Satire is… Definition Justification The satirist’s justification lies in the evils created and perpetuated by man. The constant threat of vulgarity, pride, folly, and other assorted evils are cause for social commentary to better society. • Satire is an attack by a satirist that is designed to cause discomfort due to his/her portrayal and evaluation of man. It blends a hypercritical attitude with humor and wit for the purpose of improving human institutions or humanity. Satire will only attack aspects of society which are correctable. We’re bettering the world by mocking it because we’re forcing you to want to correct your behavior.

3. All Satire is ironic, but not all irony is satire. Satire Sarcasm/Verbal irony This is a form of criticism, but it is pure criticism with an intent to bully Intended to persuade an audience to adopt ones’ belief without question • Goal and purpose is to inspire reform through the ridiculing and mocking. • Audience should evaluate their belief system and naturally come to an understanding as to why there is a need for correction within society.

4. What makes satire a savage art? What’s the difference between the bullying verbal irony? • With satire, we’re mocking you because your actions/behaviors are worth mocking. You deserve to feel small, so that you do change. What’s more savage than this? • Example: Saturday Night Live and their political sketches. They imitate in order to emulate the rhetoric of the politician. • When we are dealing with sarcasm/verbal irony, we are dealing with a system where one party is superior and the other is inferior. We make you feel small because we need to have the power in our favor.

5. Rhetorical Technique & Purpose • The satirist feels outraged justice or righteous indignation. As such, the purpose of satire is to trivialize, emphasize, or maximize the impact of a statement. Abstract ideas are often used. • Unlike verbal irony: targets are often identified or are quickly able to be inferred. We don’t want our target to escape the criticism. • To accomplish this, the satirist will hardly use a specific name. • By sparing the name of a target, the satirist becomes more effective. You don’t “single out” (like sarcasm does). You point out general patterns of human behavior that all individuals can agree on. • Further, by softening the criticism the target goal will be more readily accepted and will also prevent any desire to imitate the foibles being lampooned.

6. Looking for satire? Analyze tone. • It is often the overall tone that determines whether or not the work may be correctly labeled as satire. • This helps to focus on type of satire which will help focus on a target. • Realize now: if you catch a form of criticism, it does not make it satirical. • Identifying a “satirical tone” is the weakest approach to analysis of satire.

7. Caveat. When analyzing tone… • In timed writes: • You deal with the selection provided. • In novels: • You deal with the work as a whole. • There are chapters and sections, but the work stands as a unified piece of text.

8. Originations: Started in Greece, but perfected in Rome by these two… Juvenal, Rome 60 AD Horace, Rome 75 AD

9. Horatian satire • Tones: cheerful, urbane, “tongue-in-cheek” • Goal: to make readers smile at the foibles committed by the individuals under attack. The satirist aims to correct by employing broadly sympathetic laughter. Often misconstrued because it’s overly humorous. • Does not anger readers nor makes them feel moral indignation. The goal is to make you understand the need for reform through more playful manners. If you’re laughing, the satirist was effective at getting you see the foolishness of our behavior.

10. Juvenal satire • Tones: cutting, biting, bitter, angry • Goal: To point with contempt and indignation to the corruption of human being and institutions and strives to produce in the reader both contempt and moral indignation. The goal is to attack and destroy, the work is dark by nature. • Does not attempt to cheer or amuse the audience. You are meant to become angry. If you’re angry, the satirist effectively made you see the injustice.

11. To target and identify satire: • Target audience. You must identify the intended audience of any piece, but it is more important with satire than ever before. • Review time period of writing. Seek out potential goals. SOAPS MODEL. • Analyze the type of tone. • If you notice “criticism”, that’s fine. What’s the goal of the criticism? To judge? To inspire the intended audience to react? • Identify if it is • formal and direct (when the satiric voice speaks in first person) • informal and indirect (the characters themselves reveal their folly and ridiculousness through their own actions, words and thoughts).

12. Ask yourself 4 questions… • Who is the target of the satire? • What is the satirist’s view? • How can you tell the satirist’s view? • Who might be offended by the work?

19. Questions for Obama cover: What details do you notice here? Describe what you see. What do we know about The New Yorker and its audience? What knowledge can you bring to the table to help us make sense of this piece? (i.e., What might the artist be referring to?) Who or what is the target of his piece? What do you think the artist or The New Yorker’s view is? What are the angers/risks in publishing such a piece?

20. I understand that David Remnick said that the cover with Obama and Michelle on it had something to say. What the hell is it trying to say other than what it looks like? Racism is as American as apple pie. I'm saddened that such a tasteless image is going to be given so much publicity. I'll never read the New Yorker again. I guess one of the hallmarks of satire is that it's only funny if most people don't get it. But even so, I'm surprised a[bout] how many are missing the reference this cover is making. I loved the illustration, which I thought was a very powerful statement about how Barack Obama should not be elected President, . . . . But I must say I also agree with many in the liberal blogosphere who believe that satire and most other kinds of humor should be avoided at all costs. I have long been opposed to satire, which just causes unhealthy confusion and, like fluoridated water, weakens our body politic. . . . . We are not mind readers. It doesn't make much sense to say the opposite of what you mean and then attack people for being unsophisticated because they thought you were sincere. (Jon Swift blog) Some people will bend over backward to find something to be offended about. Whether you find it funny or not, anyone knows it's not meant to be taken seriously.

21. It’s got everything incendiary except a vest bomb. Which is what should telegraph to most people that it's way over-the-top and, therefore, satire. But politicians don't like satire because it's subject to differing interpretations. (Andrew Malcolm, LA Times blog) Obama’s campaign issued a statement by Bill Burton . . . : "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree." (Andrew Malcolm, LA Times blog) Artist Barry Blitt defends the cover, saying that "It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is." . . . this is going to upset a lot of people, probably for the same reason it's going to delight a lot of other people, namely those on the right: Because it's got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama's campaign — all in one handy illustration. (Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post)

22. Posted by Bill M. @ 8:41 AM Wed, Jul 16, 2008 If today's bloggers had encountered the Swift piece, we might have expected the following reactions:1. Potatoes and ale taste better than babies.2. One year is too long to nurse; babies should be weaned at six months.3. What do Americans know about cuisine?4. There should have been an orange sticker on the piece, warning readers that it was satire and not to be taken seriously.5. Irish babies ARE delicious.6. It's a well-known fact that Barak Obama eats Irish babies.7. If McCain is elected, he'll put an end to this baby-eating nonsense.

23. From Horace….

25. The Jabs/Digs “Well, I'm sure our forefathers would be glad to know that 700 years later we're still doing the same things they were doing.” & “Stay the Course” said by the President as world is falling apart (paraphrased, Wall-E) The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. (“A Modest Proposal”) I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children. (“A Modest Proposal”)

26. When the veil is thin . . . “Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: Of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: Of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it. Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice. But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, . . .” -- “A Modest Proposal”

27. Twain Parodies Julia A. Moore • (Excerpt from Huck Finn’s “Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots,” by EmmelineGrangerford) • O no. Then list with tearful eye,     Whilst I his fate do tell.His soul did from this cold world fly     By falling down a well. • They got him out and emptied him;     Alas it was too late;His spirit was gone for to sport aloft     In the realms of the good and great. • (Excerpt from Julia Moore’s “Little Libbie”) • One more little spirit to Heaven has flown,     To dwell in that mansion above,Where dear little angels, together roam,     In God's everlasting love. • The Rochester Democrat wrote of Sweet Singer, that "Shakespeare, could he read it, would be glad that he was dead …. If Julia A. Moore would kindly deign to shed some of her poetry on our humble grave, we should be but too glad to go out and shoot ourselves tomorrow.“ (“Julia Moore” in Wikipedia) • The best comment on her is probably from Bill Nye: “Julia is worse than a Gatling gun; I have counted twenty-one killed and nine wounded, in the small volume she has given to the public.” (“Making Light: Paint and Sensibility,” online)

28. Kip Williams has his own take on 19th c. sensibilities: I once found a pile of sheet music from just before the Civil Wah, and was surprised at the depressing nature of the subject matter. Long story short, I left the book sale without the majority of the music, which was in two pieces, so I don’t have the actual titles. I will reconstruct them from my infallible memory. The Poor OrphanThe Pathetic WidowThe Miserable AmputeeThe Touching Plight of the Baby BirdO, Can Such Things Happen?The Hideously Affecting Ballad of the Wronged SonD-I-V-O-R-C-EAll Dead On The BattlegroundThe Dead ChildThe Dead FamilyMummy’s in Heaven and We’re All SickDaddy Wouldn’t Buy Me A Bow Wow I’d go on, but I’m crying on my lunch already. (ibid)