AP® English Language & Composition Crash Course by Dawn Hogue

Author:Dawn Hogue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Research & Education Association
Published: 2018-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

Create your own list of universal truths that you believe are central to our universal social contract.

Why not simply be a muckraker, or a whistle-blower? It is sometimes politically or personally dangerous to stand up to powerful figures, whether they are institutions or individuals. Surely you’ve heard stories of whistle-blowers losing their jobs, or worse. Since satire is inherently ambiguous, there is safety in the gray areas. All satirical techniques allow the satirist to say two or more things at the same time. Satirists mainly insinuate instead of attack directly. This aspect of satire provides relative safety for the satirist, but can also present difficulty for AP English students. We must read carefully and learn to read what’s implied or insinuated. This can sometimes be very difficult to do, which is why you need to practice the skills shown in this chapter.

For example, while Stephen Colbert’s targets may be corrupt politicians, we are his audience. His goal is for us to snap out of our lethargy and become aware and eventually act. He wants us to stand up for what we know is right. Jonathan Swift could not have solved the problems of the Irish poor by himself, but he expected the landowners and the politicians to begin acting in honorable ways. A Modest Proposal is outrageous, but its intent is to shame those who abandoned the poor.

Most satirists are also, to some extent, entertainers. Even Geoffrey Chaucer’s portrayal of the cheating Miller in The Reeve’s Tale is initially laugh-out-loud funny. When we examine the story more closely, we see all kinds of human foibles there and good lessons for us all.

It is also a fact of human nature that we don’t respond to the dictates of a know-it-all. We shun the arrogance of those who tell us what to do. But when a satirist first astonishes us or makes us laugh and gives us an oblique picture of ourselves in a mirror, we somehow are more willing to accept our faults.

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