Satire: Definition, Types, & Examples
- Melchior Antoine
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Satire is a genre of literature that focuses on ridiculing persons, institutions, or ideas. The point of satire is to expose or shame the shortcomings of their target. It does so by looking at the vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings of individuals, corporations, government, or society.
At its best, satire seeks to improve society by pointing out corruption and flaws. In short, one can say, in spite of the ridicule, it can be seen as constructive social criticism.
Satire can be either a literary device, which is used creatively in works of literature that are not classified as satire, or it could be a genre of literature, where the entire work is geared toward ridicule and relying heavily on ironic humor.
Besides irony, other devices that are regularly used in satire include:
Sarcasm
Parody
Burlesque
Exaggeration
You probably have encountered satire in cinema or film. A famous example of this would be Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a biting satire about the hysteria and paranoia around the Cold War. In this article, I discuss the various types of satire and provide several examples in literature and a few examples in film, including Jonathan Swift's A modest Proposal.
What is satire?
Here is a formal definition of satire:
Using humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize foibles, corruption, and other vices in individuals, institutions, and contemporary politics.
As mentioned earlier, satire at its best attempts to improve society by pointing out its faults. However, it can also be caustic and mean. Let’s look at one example from Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (published in 1729). The work begins as follows:
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
Jonathan Swift here is providing what appears to be quite sincere and heartfelt criticism of the plight of Irish peasants. He is describing Irish mothers of infants who have been reduced to beginning. They have no access to proper employment. Their options include This can be interpreted as a political or social critique of the British government’s governance of Ireland, a British colony at the time.
However, things take an interesting turn when Swift proposes a solution to the crisis:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust. . . . A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
Well, you read that right. He believes that one solution is to turn these infants into meat that can be fed to the public. A Modest Proposal has been held up as one of the most successful examples of satire. Its strength lies in its subject matter, the absurd and ridiculous nature of the proposal, and the ironic tone in which the offer delivers his arguments.
The tone especially is spectacular. Swift writes like a modern economic or policy maker using maths and statistics to justify his proposal. He keeps a straight face while making absurd, immoral, and even insane economic proposals.
The point of the satire is to show the callous nature of the aristocratic class responsible for the misery being suffered by the Irish population. Swift takes the logic, reason, and courtesy one associates with the ruling class in Ireland and turns it on them to show how immoral and inhumane their treatment of the subjects is.
The different types of satire
There are different types of satire and they are based on the Roman writers well-known for their contribution to the genre. The three different types of satire include the following:
Horatian satire;
Juvenalian satire;
and Menippean satire
1. Horatian satire. This form of satire is named after the Roman satirist Horace (who lived from 65–8 BCE). It has a tendency to be less caustic and more good-natured and light-hearted.
Its purpose is to encourage laughter at slight foibles. It also means that both the audience and the individual being criticized or lampooned is in on the joke. A good example of Horatian satire would be Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). It’s a play that gently mocks late Victorian manners.
2. Juvenalian satire. This type of satire is generally more bitter and dark. We gave earlier the example of A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. The fact that its core argument is about turning Irish children into meat as a solution for poverty means that is quite dark. This type of satire does not hesitate to excoriate its target. It’s bitter and sarcastic, and it is meant to heap ridicule on its target.
3. Menippean satire. Menippean satire is a more complicated form of satire that usually takes the form of prose. Menippean satire attacks mental attitudes as opposed to specific individuals or entities. It relies on a mixture of allegory, picaresque narrative, and satirical commentary.
A good example of Menippean satire is Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy (published in 1759) and Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (published in 1865). These works will be discussed in some detail later on.
Examples of satire in literature
Here we are going to look at a few examples of satire in literature. We first begin with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
1. Caroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865);
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is first and foremost children’s literature designed for children. In fact, it is said that the author of the book only published the novel after testing its reception among its intended audience, young children.
The book has been classified as “nonsense literature.” This is literature meant for consumption by children full of mystical and illogical events, which the book undoubtedly is. Nonetheless, the author of the book, despite his intent to produce a book that kids would enjoy, was still able to slip in sophisticated satire.
Lewis Caroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. And some of the ideas in the play can be traced back to his critiques of mathematical theories that he strongly disagreed with.
For example, soon after falling down the rabbit hole, Alice is confused and attempts to tell the difference between what is fact and what she thinks is fact:
Oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!
What is going on here? Lewis Carroll was poking fun at “abstract” mathematics, a very popular and important branch of mathematics in his era. In this type of mathematics, if base-10 calculations are changed, then four times five indeed would equal twelve. So, this would be a type of inside joke that people with an interest in theoretical math would be aware of.
2. Rape of the Lock
Rape of the lock is one of the more famous Horatian satires. It is an epic poem written about a man cutting a lock of hair without permission from a lady who he was courting. It led to a disagreement between the two aristocratic families.
The poem was written in light-hearted jest and could even be interpreted as an attempt to solve the dispute between the two families. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the poem:
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?
By comparing the protagonists to mighty Greek heroes engaging “in tasks so bold” and to Goddesses in whose “soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage,” Pope is mocking the strong reactions that sprung from a trivial offense.
3. Animal Farm
Animal Farm (published in 1945) is a satirical novel by George Orwell. It can be described as a parody of the historical events from the 1917 revolution in Russia, which led to the collapse of Tsarist Russia and the establishment of the Soviet Union.
The novel takes the form of an allegorical tale, where farm animals take over from an abusive human farmer to create a more just and equal society among the various animals on the farm.
However, the pigs who form the elite of the farm soon start displaying the same behavior as the oppressive human elites who they overthrew. This is how the novel ends:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
This is a passage describing the other animals at the farm looking at the pigs ruling over them. It suggests that the pigs eventually turn into their human oppressors.
Satire in film: Dr. Strangelove
There are also numerous examples of satire in film. But the one we will look at is Dr. Strangelove (released in 1964) also known as How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The movie was directed by Stanley Kubrik, starring and written by Peter Sellers.
It tells the story of the President of the United States, his scientific advisor Dr. Strangelove, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force exchange officer in their attempt to prevent a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The film is full of bitter sarcasm and irony while being wickedly funny.
The aim of the movies is to poke fun at the petty ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust.
This pettiness is seen below in the clip, where the Soviet Union ambassador talks about his preference for Cuban cigars as opposed to Jamaican cigars, since Cuba is a political satellite of the SOviet Union, while Jamaica is under the influence of Washington:
In the clip above, the ambassador from Russia has been invited into the war room, where he promptly gets into a fight with a general who is suspicious of him. One of the more memorable and iconic lines from the scene is the ironic phrase: “Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!”
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Satire vs. sarcasm vs. parody
Satire, sarcasm, and parody are all closely related to each other. Nonetheless, it is best that we are clear about the differences among these three terms.
Satire is a genre of literature that uses irony and humor to critique individuals, ideas, and social institutions. Sarcasm and parody are both tools of satire.
Sarcasm is a form of irony where one says the opposite of what is meant often with the intention to ridicule or mock. For example, asking “Who came up with that bright idea?” when the idea seems stupid is an example of satire.
Parody refers to the imitation of events, persons, and styles of literature. For example, Alexander Pope’s Rape of teh Lock is a satire. However, it takes the form of a satire that parodies two things — the trivial event of a young lady’s lock of hair being cut off and the style of Greek epic traditions.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2025, May 22). Satire: Definition, Types, & Examples. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/satire-definition-types-examples |
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