Satire: An Overview

1. Satire: An Overview

2. Satire: Definitions • “Satire is like a mirror in which [a man] sees everyone’s face but [his] own.” ~Jonathan Swift • Satire is a literary genre that uses irony, wit and sometimes sarcasm, to expose humanity’s foibles giving impetus to changes through ridicule. The author of a satire reduces the vaulted worth of something to its real- decidedly lower- worth.

3. Characteristics of Satire • SATIRE IS NOT COMEDY, which just seeks to entertain or amuse. Satire, while implicitly humorous, has a moral purpose. 1. Moral lesson 2. Funny 3. Shared community standard of correct behavior (which begets the humor!) **The goal of satire is not just to abuse, but rather, to provoke change or reform.

4. Satire and the triangle • Speaker: Is it the author or persona/mask? • Audience: Does it share morals with the speaker? • Subject: What is the moral under attack?

5. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • Invective: very abusive language (non ironical), swearing and name calling directed against a person or cause. This is the least inventive tool. A long invective is called a DIATRIBE.

6. Traditional Techniques in Satire: EXAMPLE OF INVECTIVE:

7. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • Caricature: Exaggerating, for comic effect, a particular characteristic or characteristics of the target.

8. Examples of Caricature/Exaggeration • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQKdEdzHnfU “We Met at Starbucks” • http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/couric-palin-open/704042/ • Tina Fey as Sarah Palin

9. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • Mock Heroic: type of satire that sets up an absurd distance between elevated language and common events. • Mock-heroic is an excellent tool for use when mocking pride (false pride). Finally, Mock heroic is usually conveyed in rhyming couplets:

10. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • A satirical look at both the fairy tale and the mock-heroic style is found in the film version of The Princess Bride, which satirizes classics like The Three Musketeers and Ivanhoe, when Inigo Montoya and Fezzik form sentences, together creating rhyming couplets:

11. Traditional Techniques in Satire: Mock Heroic from Princess Bride Inigo Montoya: That Vizzini, he can *fuss*. Fezzik: Fuss, fuss... I think he like to scream at *us*. Inigo Montoya: Probably he means no *harm*. Fezzik: He's really very short on *charm*. Inigo Montoya: You have a great gift for rhyme. Fezzik: Yes, yes, some of the time. Vizzini: Enough of that. Inigo Montoya: Fezzik, are there rocks ahead? Fezzik: If there are, we all be dead. Vizzini: No more rhymes now, I mean it. Fezzik: Anybody want a peanut? Vizzini: DYEEAAHHHHHH.

12. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • Irony- a stylistic device of speech in which the real meaning of the words is different from (and opposite to) the literal meaning. • Irony, unlike sarcasm, tends to be ambiguous, bringing two contrasting meanings into play. Often, irony works by an incongruity between a concept and the words used to describe it. • Irony becomes satiric when the real meaning appears to contradict the surface meaning

13. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • See the example from The Onion and see if you can articulate the exact nature of the irony.

14. Girl Moved To Tears By 'Of Mice And Men' Cliffs Notes CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA—In what she described as "the most emotional moment" of her academic life, University of Virginia sophomore communications major Grace Weaver sobbed openly upon concluding Steinbeck's seminal work of American fiction Of Mice And Men's Cliffs Notes early last week. “This book has changed me in a way that only great literature summaries can," said Weaver, who was so shaken by the experience that she requested an extension on her English 229 essay. "The humanity displayed in the Character Flowchart really stirred something in me. And Lennie's childlike innocence was beautifully captured through the simple, ranch-hand slang words like 'mentally handicapped' and 'retarded.'“ Added Weaver: "I never wanted the synopsis to end." Weaver, who formed an "instant connection" with Lennie's character-description paragraph, said she began to suspect the novel might end tragically after reading the fourth sentence which suggested the gentle giant's strength and fascination with soft things would "lead to his untimely demise."

15. "I was amazed at how attached to him I had become just from the critical commentary," said Weaver, still clutching the yellow-and-black-striped study guide. "When I got to the last sentence—'George shoots Lennie in the head,'—it seemed so abrupt. But I found out later that the 'ephemeral nature of life' is a major theme of the novel." Weaver was assigned Of Mice And Men—a novel scholars have called "a masterpiece of austere prose" and "the most skillful example of American naturalism under 110 pages"—as part of her early twentieth-century fiction course, and purchased the Cliffs Notes from a cardboard rack at her local Barnes & Noble. John Whittier-Ferguson, her professor for the class, told reporters this was not the first time one of his students has expressed interest in the novel's plot summary. "It's one of those universal American stories," said Ferguson after being informed of Weaver's choice to read the Cliffs Notes instead of the pocket-sized novel. "I look forward to skimming her essay on the importance of following your dreams and randomly assigning it a grade.

16. Traditional Techniques in Satire: • Parody-refers to a style that deliberately ridicules another style. The best parody writers possess the degree of skill as the art form they parody. • Princess Bride, in addition to being an example of mock heroic, is also a parody of fairy tales/adventure stories.

17. Traditional Techniques in Satire: Examples of parody: • Weird Al Yankovich song: White and Nerdy • Not Another Teen Movie: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=not+another+teen+movie+trailer&aq=f • Best in Show

18. Tricks of Satire 1. SET UP A TARGET- the attackable conduct 2. DISTORT THE TARGET- in order to distort the target so that the audience still sees the “original” but so the distortions are funny.

19. Tricks of Satire 3. ATTACK THE DISTORTED TARGET- using “weapons of satire,”

20. Tricks of Satire • The aim, here, is to deliver an unrelenting attack on the target that the audience can laugh at, so that the audience’s shared response, its laughter, can effectively deal with the behavior that the satirist wishes to attack.

21. Final questions • How do we measure the effectiveness of a satire? Well, ask yourself: does it provoke its audience? Does the audience change as a result?