FINISH your Hawthorne outline that was assigned yesterday.

(I’ve become a little confused about assignments and times, so this post is covering Friday to Monday. I think. I don’t know. Just read on . . .)

For Monday, read two Mark Twain satirical pieces.

First, you need to understand SATIRE. One student defined it for me as, “Lying and teasing to make a point.” Not entirely incorrect.

Think about “The Onion,” or “Babylon Bee.” These are satirical websites which are, far too often, very accurate.

The PURPOSE of satire is to draw attention to a social or political problem, and motivate people to change it. While often funny, satire is NOT about humor or entertainment, but is attempting to shake people and say, “THIS IS WRONG! FIX THIS!” but in a less violent way. “The aim of satire is, or should be, to improve human institutions and/or humanity.”

For example, take a look at this satirical video that teachers love. What is the OVERALL message they’re trying to make with this video? (That real people doing real jobs should be celebrated far more than athletes.)

Satire is “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”

Often there’s nothing we can do about a present situation, except to demonstrate that it exists. For example, there’s been a lot of satire around our toilet paper shortages:

Now, taken literally, this photo is ridiculous. Why is this guy dressed up in 1700s-era clothing with a toilet paper wig, various cleaning supplies, and a carton of eggs?

But the caption to this photo is, “Flaunting my wealth to the commoners.” This photo is ironic–which is closely related to satire–in that just a few months ago, every “commoner” had such items, but now with panic buying, these are important signs of wealth. The satire is that photo is staged back when wealthy kings would have paintings done of themselves with all of their wealth around them. Ironically, this is now our “wealth.”

This picture is funny, but it’s also true and points out a problem which, in the future, we really need to address. (The BIG questions are, what exactly is the problem–people unprepared, people panicked, people misunderstanding what the real threats are–and once we figure out the problem, what’s the solution?) Think of this again: “The aim of satire is, or should be, to improve human institutions and/or humanity.”

The most shocking and appalling piece of satire came out waaay back in 1729, called “A Modest Proposal,” by Jonathan Swift. (He also wrote Gulliver’s Travels.)

There was a huge national tragedy of sorts in Ireland at the time–immense poverty among the Catholics. Swift wrote his essay (anonymously) providing a solution: eat the babies. Catholics have so many babies, and the meat is tender and delicious. If they’re starving, just eat their babies. Problem solved.

Well, people were shocked at that “proposal,” nor did Swift mean it seriously at all. He was trying to shed light on a great tragedy, and by taking it to an extreme he finally got some people to pay attention to the plight of the Catholics.

Mark Twain was also a great satirist, and what you’ll read for Monday is NOT about eating babies, don’t worry.

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:

This reading and responding assignment is due MONDAY, April 13, before midnight.