Abeshaus
AP Lang 2015
ANALYZING SATIRE
Satire Defined
Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form, although in practice, it is also found in the graphic and
performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by
means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement.
Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humor in itself so much as an
attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit.
Requirements:
10/30 Visual: student choice
11/13
Animal Farm
12/4
The Lord of the Flies
T.T.A.T.S.(3): In an essay, analyze each satirical work for the components of T.T.A.T.S.(3). (For each work,
identify and analyze 3 or more Strategies of Satire.) In other words, all components must be incorporated in your
essay, in an order that makes sense, including the identification and analysis of 3 satirical strategies. Remember,
a clear and complete explanation of techniques is essential—they are not self-evident. In your conclusion, tie
these devices together to address the “so what?” or significance question/issue.
TAG
Tone: attitude of the writer toward his/her subject
Audience and Intent: What is the issue and who would care? In addition, What are the specific targets of
attack? (Identify and defend targets precisely.) Satire tries to persuade the reader to believe or to do
something by showing the opposite view as absurd, vicious, or inhumane. Satire is partially so complex because it
addresses multiple audiences at once, with multiple intents. There are three audiences and associated intents:
1. Those whom the author (or artist) believes to already be in agreement with their viewpoint. (a.k.a., those
on your side). Intent: To show yourself intelligent and accomplished to those on your side.
2. Those whom the author (or artist) would like to ridicule for their opposing viewpoint. (a.k.a., those whom
you will stealthily ridicule). Intent: To make those whom you disagree with look foolish.
3. Those whom the author (or artist) believes may be persuaded through exposure to the satirical work.
(a.k.a., the "swing" audience). Intent: To persuade to your point of view, those who are intelligent enough
to understand irony and recognize the ridiculous (thereby "swinging" them to your side)
Type of Satire: Horation Satire vs. Juvenalian Satire
Traditionally, satire was classified according to two basic types, named after the Roman satirists Horace and
Juvenal. “Horation” satire is light and amusing, whereas “Juvenalian” satire is bitter and shocking. But between
these two extremes lies a vast range of attitudes; amusement and contempt may be blended in varying
proportions. You might imagine these two qualities as the oil and the vinegar in a salad dressing, differing in
proportion according to the chef’s taste.

HORATION SATIRE is light and playfully amusing, and seeks to correct vice or foolishness with gentle
laughter and understanding.
Horation satire is found in the following passages from Gulliver’s Travels, part 1:
…the rope dancing diversion, in which vacant political offices in Lilliput are filled by whoever
jumps the highest without falling off the tightrope. Also, honor in office is awarded to those who
show the most agility in leaping and creeping over a stick held by the emperor.

JUVENALIAN SATIRE provokes a darker kind of laughter. It is often bitter and shocking, and criticizes
corruption or incompetence with scorn and outrage.
Abeshaus
AP Lang 2015
Juvenalian satire is found in the following passage from Gulliver’s Travels, Part 2, the King’s response to
Gulliver’s descriptions of government in England:
You have made a most admirable [speech of praise] upon your country. You have clearly proved
that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying as a legislator…I
cannot but conclude the bulk or your natives to be the most pernicious race of odious vermin that
nature ever suffered to crawl upon the earth.
Strategies/Devices/Techniques of Satire (3)

Burlesque: work that ridicules people, or actions by mimicry and ridiculous exaggeration achieved through a
variety of ways intending to cause laughter. For example, the sublime may be absurd, honest emotions may be
turned to sentimentality. STYLE is the essential quality in burlesque. A style ordinarily dignified may be used
for nonsensical matters, etc. Characterized by ribald humor and immodestly dressed women; impertinent
comedy, the point being to spoof and titillate and not to offend.
**NOTE—TRAVESTY, BURLESQUE & PARODY are similar, but travesty always makes a mockery of a serious
subject, whereas burlesque and parody may do the reverse.

Diminution: Reduces the size of something in order that it may be made to appear ridiculous or in order to be
examined closely and have its faults seen close up. Also known as deflation.

Double entendre: a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two
ways. Often the first (more obvious) meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often
risqué (with a sexual connotation) or ironic to convey an indelicate meaning.

Farce—exciting laughter through exaggerated, improbable situations. This usually contains low comedy:
quarreling, fighting, coarse wit, horseplay, noisy singing, boisterous conduct, trickery, clownishness,
drunkenness, slap-stick. Farce is literature that combines exaggeration with an improbable plot and
stereotyped characters to achieve humor. Ex. Three Stooges, Frasier, 3rd Rock

Grotesque: creating a tension between laughter and horror or revulsion; the essence of al “sick” humor or
black humor. Ex. A baby seal walks into a club… OR dead baby jokes

Hyperbole – exaggeration. To enlarge, increase, or represent something beyond normal bounds so that it
becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen.

Incongruity. To present something that is out of place or are absurd in relation to its surroundings.

Inflation: A common technique of satire is to take a real-life situation and exaggerate it to such a degree
that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen, and thus satirical.

Invective—harsh, abusive language directed against a person or cause. Invective is a vehicle, a tool of anger.
Invective is the bitterest of all satire. An invective is an angry, critical or abusive tirade directed at someone
or something.

Irony
o Cosmic irony: when a deity, or fate, is represented as though deliberately manipulating events so as to
lead the protagonist to false hopes, only to frustrate and mock them.
o
Dramatic irony: reader knows something important that a character does not know. Dramatic irony is a
relationship of contrast between a character's limited understanding of his or her situation in some
particular moment of the unfolding action and what the audience, at the same instant, understands the
character's situation actually to be.
Abeshaus
AP Lang 2015
o
Situational irony: what actually happens is the opposite of what is expected or appropriate. Situational
irony results from recognizing the oddness or unfairness of a given situation, be it positive or negative.
Even though a person typically cannot justifiably explain this unfairness logically, the coincidental nature
of the situation is still very obvious to those evaluating it.
o
Socratic irony: named after Socrates. Presenting a willingness to learn, for the sake of exposing an
opponents errors. Feigned ignorance for a purpose. Socrates pretended ignorance of a subject in order to
draw knowledge out of his students by a question and answer device. Socratic irony is feigning ignorance
to achieve some advantage over an opponent.
o
Verbal irony: meaning is different, often opposite, from what it says, a contrast between what is stated
and what is meant. Often using sarcasm, overstatement, understatement, and/or litotes.

Juxtaposition: Places things of unequal importance side by side. It brings all the things down to the lowest
level of importance on the list.

Knaves & Fools—in comedy there are no villains and no innocent victims. Instead, there are rogues (knaves)
and suckers (fools). The knave exploits someone “asking for it”. When these two interact, comic satire
results. When knaves & fools meet, they expose each other.

Malapropism—a deliberate mispronunciation of a name or term with the intent of poking fun. Ex. “Lorraine, my
density has brought me to you.” George McFly, Back to the Future (destiny)

Mock Encomium: praise which is only apparent and which suggests blame instead

Mock Epic: using elevated diction and devices from the epic or the heroic to deal with low or trival subjects

Parody: To imitate the techniques and/or style of some person, place, or thing. An imitative work created to
mock, comment on or trivialize an original work or its subject matter (or some other target). Designed to
ridicule in nonsensical fashion an original piece of work. Parody is in literature what the caricature and
cartoon are in art. Parody is used for mocking or mocking its idea of the person, place, or thing.

Reversal. To present the opposite of the normal order (e.g., the order of events, hierarchical order).

Sarcasm: use of language to hurt or ridicule; not subtle; a sharply mocking or contemptuous remark.

Syllepsis: one word modifies or governs two or more words with different senses. Ex. "He was deep in thought
and debt."

Travesty—presents a serious (often religious) subject frivolously it reduces everything to its lowest level; a
mockingly undignified or trivializing treatment of a dignified subject, usually as a kind of parody. Travesty
may be distinguished from the mock epic and other kinds of burlesque in that it treats a solemn subject
frivolously, while they treat frivolous subjects with mock solemnity.

Understatement – Reference to something as exaggeratedly lesser than its true nature; for example,
describing a flooded area as "slightly soggy" (Litotes: deliberate understatement)

Wit: humor in order to criticize, verbal cleverness

Word Play: the words that are used become the main subject of the work: puns, phonetic mix-ups, obscure
words and meanings, clever rhetorical excursions, oddly formed sentences, telling character names, etc.