SatireExploring Words that Challenge

What is Satire?

▪Writing designed to make its readers feel critical of:–Themselves–Their fellow humans–Their society

Why write satire?

▪ Satirists are dissatisfied with things as they are, and they want to make them better.

–Satire allows the reader/viewer to laugh at the selfish, mean-spirited, willful ignorance of the characters in hope that we see ourselves and mend our ways.

Two Modes of Satire

Horatian

• Gentle, mild humor• Problem seen as

foolishJuvenalian

• Angry, savage ridicule• Problem seen as

urgent, severe, or evil

*The Individual*The Group*The “System”

Target Audiences of Satire

The Rhetorical/Satirical Triangle

Speaker

Target Audience

These 3 elements must be present for effective satire.

Devices Satirists Employ

▪ Exaggeration

▪ Understatement

▪ Irony

▪ Incongruity

▪ Reversal/Inversion

▪ Parody

Exaggeration

To enlarge , increase,or represent somethingbeyond normal boundsso that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen.

Understatement

The opposite of exaggerationabout something serious; makes less of a deal ofsomething than it is.

Irony

Things are opposite of what they seem.Something small andtrivial is made to seem important or serious.

Incongruity

To present things that areout of place or are absurdin relation to its surrounding.

Reversal/Inversion

To present the oppositeof the normal order.

Parody

To imitate the techniques and/or the style of person,place, or thing.

“Beat It”Link: https://youtu.be/oRdxUFDoQe0

Parody

“Eat It”Link: https://youtu.be/ZcJjMnHoIBI

Identify:Speaker? Audience? Target?

Forms Satirists Use1.Fantasy

2. Mock Heroics

3. Formal

Proposal

4. Praise/Blame

▪ Setting is an imaginary world

▪ Takes a realistic problem or dispute and turn it into an exaggerated epic battle

▪ Prepare a highly serious, highly rational proposal for action on this problem, but make it totally unreasonable and exaggerated.

▪ Take something that is bad and praise it without boundary, or take something good and cut it to shreds

Identify the:Speaker? Audience? Target? Message?

Identify the:Speaker? Audience? Target? Message?

Next Step

Use what you know about ethos, pathos, logos and satire to analyze the article, “Girl Moved to Tears by ‘Of Mice and Men’ Cliffs Notes.”

Read and annotate the article. Be sure to identify the triangle of rhetoric/satire.