Breaking Down Satire: Vividness

Tags

Breaking Down Satire, child slave labor, fairy tale, Festival of Summer, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Ursula K. Le Guin, utopias, vivid language

Since one of the main descriptions of satire is the use of vivid language that clearly depicts painful, bizarre, foolish, and wicked events and people in order to make an audience aware of how blinded or insensitive or numb we can become to the truths in which we often must overlook to get through our day. Okay, that opens a can of worms that I will actually dig into.

Let’s jump right into an example, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” one of my favorite stories to teach for the satire unit.

Ursula K. Le Guin does an excellent job of crafting this magnificent place, and she does so straight away with her first lines:

With the clamor of bells that set the swallows soring, the Festival of Summer came to the city of Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old miss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved.

And:

An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.

Both create a sense of awe, of fairy tale, or a utopia, which is what Le Guin works for six pages to make us believe in—something more unbelievable than a fairy tale. Utopias cannot exist. Especially not on a large scale.

And that, my friends, is her point. She often asks the reader, “Do you believe me now?”

Then, she drops this bomb on us, more vivid than any of her previous imagery:

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three aces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the buck and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked and nobody will come…but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. ‘I will be good,’ it says. ‘Please let me out. I will be good!’

Although may lessons can be taken by the way she sets up the trajectory of the story, the largest impact comes in comparing that first child, the flue player, with the child in the closet. Le Guin lays out the rules, without that single sacrifice, that boy wouldn’t have been so blissfully wrapped in the tune of his flute.

In fact, the entire city would fall apart, and so would its people:

If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing indeed; but if it were one, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grave of every life in Omleas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the change of the happiness of one…

I hope the point is obvious. Since utopia means something different for all of us, when one is enacted, there will always be someone who is oppressed and violated. Someone will always suffer so that others can have more.

I, of course, use this in class to talk about all types of things, like child slave labor and bad business practices of big conglomerates. But it also allows me to force their hand, to make them look at their bad behavior, at all of ours, because those conglomerates wouldn’t be so big if we didn’t buy their products. But when Le Guin makes that connection between the children, she is describing us—those of us with the easy connection to the internet, who carry computers around in our pockets, drive our own cars to work or school, have more food than we can eat in a week, those of us who have to work fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty ours a week to have a little more than the bare minimum.

She is also talking about the rich and powerful, too, don’t let me distract from that, but they aren’t reading this story. My students are, and they have to know that those luxuries are available to us because of that eight-year-old digging in a field to extract cocoa and coffee beans. Those people who try to jump to their deaths from the top floor of a third-world factory, making our leading brand of phones, because they’re treated so poorly—only to be caught in nets and rolled right back into work.

We buy those products and fuel those businesses. We vote with our dollar, but most of us do not think about it.

We’re distracted by those toys, by the hustle to be successful, to make more money, to live an easier life. Because it’s hard to do. It makes sense that we don’t stop to think about it, and when we do, we feel the pull of that game on our phone, that social media feed, that cat video. We can’t do anything as a single person amongst billions.

That’s why Le Guin names the story after her brilliant ending. There are ones that walk away from the city because they can’t live with their happiness hinging on someone else’s misery.

If you get the chance to read the full story, I encourage you to. Her ability to so vividly describe this place and this problem makes it rich with connections and layers of meaning. And that’s what vividness should do for a satirical text—highlight their point and infuriate their readers.

 

Have you had a vivid description impact you in this way? Let me know about it in the comments below.

Breaking Down Satire: Obscenity

Tags

Breaking Down Satire, censorship, censorship on literature, foul language, Obscenity, reductive fiction, societal commentary, South Park, Swift's "A Modest Proposal", visceral reactions

Obscenity is reductive, which reduces men to equality and humbles the mighty. The fool becomes the king, the whore a preacher, and rigid hierarchy is muddled. Everyone’s place evens out to the same level through the removal of rank and wealth. This is used to strip men bare, removing their robes and crowns, and leaving them naked and too similar.

Through obscenity, a satirist can push further and drop us into our true animalistic conditions, where claims to social and divine powers makes a character seem more ridiculous. We have no heroes, no leaders, no one better than anyone else. It mocks what we often hold as more important than individual thoughts and feelings.

Some may confuse obscenity with simply using foul language or pornography, but it more closely shows the treatment of a subject by pushing boundaries against taboos and puritanical thought. Those very things that restrict us from our most basic natures and limit society’s progression through the folly of righteousness.

Obscenity preceded satire and comedy in Greek and Roman festivals where phallic songs and rude verses were sung. But the most famous use of it in satire was Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” and his ability to horrify his audience with the idea of using the poor as a means of producing more affordable meat through eating their young. The suggestion was not a serious one, but an extreme to make a point—something must be done to keep people from starving, and he was sick of having his genuine ideas ignored, so he relied on the atrocity of the idea to gain attention for the problem.

More modernly, South Park is the front-runner for pushing the bounds of societal commentary through vulgar speech and offensive material. The use of obscenity as a vehicle to create deep, analytical thought is often lost on audiences who cling to the puritanical rules placed within our varying cultures. But pushing past their use of shit and fart jokes, they open us to create dialogues on wider issues concerning censorship, as with their episodes surrounding the use of swearing or images of Muhammad on television. Check out this video if you’d like a more in-depth explanation about how South Park addresses these issues.

Censorship has always been a big deal for me as an individual and a writer, and may be one of the bigger reasons why I love to read and write satire. I’ve been punished for my foul language by authorities my entire life—I was that kid that got written up for saying fuck on the bus in kindergarten, and first grade, and second, third, fourth, and fifth. I learned to keep it to myself by sixth. Yeah, I was slow on the uptake there, or maybe, I rebelled against people telling me that I had no right to control what came out of my own mouth.

Man, I sound like Ria.

This links more heavily to my on-going battle with conformity, both in my novels and in my life. As someone who has been bullied for my hair, my weight, my opinions, and my ideas, I cling to obscenity like a demented twin sister who loves to get me in trouble. My foul language does not make my intelligence or my arguments any less sound. Although it certainly makes them more colorful.

Again, Ria is the same, dropping f-bombs to make her uptight mentor flinch. Got to fight the man in any way she’s allotted, and she’s unapologetic for being herself. I wish I was more like her, but fiction allows a wider line than reality does since I can get fired for saying certain things in my classroom—or people might rebel if I expressed my every opinion in public.

Essentially, the use of obscenity allows us to create a visceral reaction in others in hopes that they will examine not only the ideas placed before them, but their reactions, their cultures, and their own behaviors in hopes of progressing thought and reducing us all to the same base note: that we’re all simply human.

Do you use obscenity in your writing? Let me know in the comments below.

 

 

Sources:

Satire: Origins and Principles by Matthew Hodgart

https://nofilmschool.com/2016/10/evolution-south-park-vulgarity-and-tv-censorship

 

Breaking Down Satire: Colloquialism

Tags

Breaking Down Satire, character voice, colloquialism, creating realistic characters, creating realistic dialogue, dialect, dropping "g"s in literature, idioms, jargon, slang

Colloquialism uses informal words and phrases within a dialect to include aphorism, idioms, profanity, or other words that occur regularly in daily speech. Spoken by a specific group, dialects are a language within a language that uses unique words, slang, and accent.

Additionally, colloquialisms pop up frequently in poetry, prose, and drama, especially concerning dialogue or first-person narration. This gives characters a more lifelike quality because a character’s voice is one of their defining features.

This literary tool is used in two main ways. First, some colloquialisms are words or phrases that only appear in a specific dialect. For example, in my hometown, Syracuse, NY, we call white-hot hotdogs coonies. We are the only place in the world that call them that because we’re stubborn, and that’s what they’re called.

Second, these words and phrases appear widely but have different meanings amongst certain dialects. For example, in Oklahoma, the word coke refers to any kind of soft drink, while in most other states, it refers to the brand Coca-Cola. The first time my husband ordered a Dr Pepper after we moved here: “Hey, I want a coke.” “What kind?” “Dr Pepper.” It absolutely flabbergasted me. Still does.

These can also include contractions (y’all) and profanity (bloody) and idioms (“That thing is all cattywampus,” a version of caddy-corner).

Colloquial expressions allow literature to reflect a writer’s society, how people talk in their real lives, and this helps writers form strong connections with readers via realism.

Slang and jargon help with this kind of realism and are sisters to colloquialism, although overlap can occur. The differences are that slang is used within a specific social group, like teens, and colloquialisms are understood across demographic barriers. And jargon is also used only by certain groups, like doctors, accountants, lawyers, and writers! Yeah, go on and talk about the POV in your WIP or the issues you’re experiencing between the Beta and ARC stages of the process, then watch as people’s eyes glaze over with confusion.

With all of that in mind, here are a couple lists of common colloquialisms:

 

• to bamboozle – to deceive
• go bananas – go insane or be very angry
• wanna – want to
• gonna – going to
• go nuts – go insane or be very angry
• look blue – look sad
• buzz off – go away
• penny-pincher – a stingy person
• I wasn’t born yesterday – I’m not an idiot.
• There’s more than one way to skin a cat – There’s more than one way to complete this task.

 

Now, employing this device will often stand out to the reader, but writers are cautioned away from overusing easy dialectal cues, like dropping the “g” at the end to create a Southern twang, since it’s diction that creates vernacular, not stylizing words.

For instance:

We’re goin’ to the store. A generic dropped “g” that may indicate a country or southern accent, albeit, not well.

vs

We’re fixing to go to Walmart. Note that I didn’t change anything about the words, but it has a hell of a lot more voice to it because of the dialect.

 

By the way, this kills me since fixing is one of my least favorite words. I really live in the wrong state to make this argument though.

 

But when colloquialism is used well, readers will find the story and its characters more genuine. In fact, many authors use colloquialisms unconsciously in their writing.

 

Some of my favorite colloquialisms and like devices define my side characters: how Vincent’s Australian accent peeks through via idioms, like “what are you having a wobbly about?” or how he refers to females a sheila. How Boden doesn’t use articles and confuses his prepositions because English is his third or fourth language. How most of my slang comes from Ari, like her use of “bitch trip” for a group trip to the girls’ bathroom.

My paranormals also have their own words, like renegades being new, unauthorized vampires; bosex taking place of the shifter; and claims meaning the control of a full-fledged vampire has over the renegade in their charge. Most of how I used these devices aren’t strictly adhering to satirical standards, but I do so love to mess with genre norms that they seem fitting.

 

Do you use colloquialism in your writing? Tell me in the comments below.

 

 

Sources:

https://literarydevices.net/colloquialism/

http://www.literarydevices.com/colloquialism/

https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/colloquialism

 

 

Breaking Down Satire: Antithesis and Anticlimax

Tags

Anticlimax, Antithesis, blood phoenix saga, Breaking Down Satire, deus ex machina, figure of speech, juxtaposition, parallelism, rhetorical device, The Girl with the Glowing Hair

First, allow me a disclaimer by saying that although these words have some similarities, they’re really not connected all that much. I clumped them together because I wanted to and for no other real reason.

Let’s start with Antithesis, which can be defined as a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else. It is often used to emphasize an idea through the perceived analogy and draw the attentions of readers.

Here are some examples:

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Muhammad Ali

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“HAMLET: To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them?” William Shakespeare

And one I use in class every semester:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” Charles Dickens.

Each of these quotes is meant to highlight something specific about the topic in which they focus. Space travel indicates monumental progress for mankind, even if only a few men got to step foot on the moon. Boxing is a mix of peaceful floating—or dodging—and aggressive stinging—punching. We have to put aside petty differences and act like a family, even if dysfunctional, or the constant fighting will ruin us all. Life is struggle and death is peace, but if we choose peace, we choose nothingness. And turmoil amongst the French Revolution, accentuating the division and confusion of the people in that era.

Much like paradox, antithesis relies on juxtaposition to emphasize key qualities that are similar amongst the opposition. The parallel structure of antithesis sharpens the meaning that comes with specific combinations, as the repetition makes the contrast clarifies the intended message, which is not to say that it must ALWAYS be parallel, but it aids in the overall understanding. In fact, antithesis seems to be built around the “or” construction.

To sum up, we use antithesis for several purposes: to present a stark difference between two options, to express the magnitude of range, to express strong emotions, to create a conflicting relationship between two ideas, and to accentuate the features of one thing by placing in opposition to another.

I don’t think I’ve ever used it purposefully or not, but I’m sure going to be more aware of the option as I draft.

Now, anticlimax creates a disappointing end or conclusion to an exciting or impressive series of events. It often does not meet the expectations that the narrative has built, and the error occurs because the solution to a problem is so trivial or comes without the protagonist using any of their skills, like using a deus ex machina. Essentially, the anticlimax is not nearly as good or brilliant as the rest of the movie. This is not a plot twist but an obvious ending, an unrelated ending, or one that leaves the reader hanging.

Here is examples of an anticlimactic ending from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:

“I spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the sun. I give Peeta’s hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-bye, and we begin counting. “One.” Maybe I’m wrong. “Two.” Maybe they don’t care if we both die. “Three!” It’s too late to change my mind. I lift my hand to my mouth, taking one last look at the world. The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare.”

What an excellent example of deus ex machina, although we see Katniss use her skilled logic to understand that either way, she’s defeated the system by not allowing a single winner. She probes us for an emotional ending. No survivors means usurping the hope it’s meant to create for the people via the lack of a real war, but two survivors provides too much hope and more drama for the society and the capitol. This, of course, was done on purpose to create a cliffhanger that sets up the rest of the trilogy.

Another example is the ending of Signs in which touching water kills the aliens that came to take over Earth. For the fate of the world, this seems like such a simple solution that garners a bit of a flat response because no real intervention was needed; however, for the characters of focus in the narrative, this has been set up nicely, and therefore, has a satisfying ending for them.

Also, anticlimax can be used as a figure of speech when it appears somewhere else in the story. These are statements that gradually descend in order of importance, arranging a series of words, phrases, or clauses in order of decreasing importance. For example, he lost his family, his car, and his cell phone. Typically, we like to accentuate importance by putting the most important at the end of a sentence for effect, but here, we begin with the emotional impact—his family—something that he cannot replace, and we leave with an object of little value that is easily replaceable, his cell phone. Although, I’m sure a great many young adults would argue its lack of importance if they could. Overall, this creates a humorous effect and produces great surprise, but readers may see it as an error unless the author intentionally meant to produce ridiculousness.

Here are a few more examples of anticlimactic figures of speech:

“In moments of crisis, I size up the situation in a flash, set my teeth, contract my muscles, take a firm grip on myself, and without tremor, always do the wrong thing.” George Bernard Shaw

“He has seen the ravages of war, he has known natural catastrophes, he has been to singles bars.” Woody Allen.

The buildup and the payoff here do not correlate well, but they do create humorous and unreliable characters.

This one is a tool I use loosely—more so in THE GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR when I’ve utilized a dues ex machina, but the character planned it. Does that make any sense? In the BLOOD PHOENIX saga, I also tend to have anticlimactic fights between Ria and Gene that always devolves into her and my coffee obsession.

 

Are you familiar with these rhetorical tools? Do you utilize them in your writing? Tell me how in the comments below!

 

 

Sources:

http://www.literarydevices.com/antithesis/

https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/antithesis

https://literaryterms.net/antithesis/

 

http://www.literarydevices.com/anticlimax/

https://literarydevices.net/anti-climax/

https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-the-difference-between-the-climax-and-anti-climax-of-any-movie

 

Breaking Down Satire: Paradox

Tags

Breaking Down Satire, contradictions in literature, dichotomy, exaggeration, good vs evil paradox, paradox, Pride and Prejudice, satirical analysis, satirical elements, the good guy complex

Paradox is a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

This is the definition I offer my students when we begin the satirical analysis paper—aka my favorite assignment to teach. And here are some of my favorite examples to help:

-“I can resist anything but temptation.” Oscar Wilde

-The more you try to impress others, the less they’ll be impressed.

-“It’s weird not to be weird.” John Lennon

-You must be cruel to be kind.

-It was the beginning of the end.

-“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

-“What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” – George Bernard Shaw

These are all used for situational or rhetorical effect to reconcile a hidden or unexpected truth with the reader. We also often refer to them as dichotomies, where a sharp contrast is required to create drama, cause conflict, or add depth to a character or situation. Think:

-There can be no pleasure without pain.

-You can only hate someone you’ve once loved.

More complexly, let’s look at Mr. Darcy, whom I love to compare my character Gene to. Mr. Darcy holds several opposing characteristics: he’s arrogant but bashful, tactless but generous, proud but broken.

Okay, that last one may not exactly be opposing, but they’re close enough for my tastes, as that’s something inherently infused in Gene’s personality. He’s so highly strung because he’s sensitive, and he’s had to learn to hide it in order to protect himself.

Another paradox presents itself in most of my stories, especially the longer ones, and more honed in on Ria’s story in the BLOOD PHOENIX saga, and that’s:

Good people must accept that, sometimes, they will have to do bad things to bad people to protect the ones they love.

For her entire story arc, Ria fights to be what she deems as a good guy, struggles to keep her humanity because she doesn’t want to become like any of those corrupt women in charge. But she slowly learns that she must act like them to defeat them and is willing to sacrifice her humanity to keep other, innocent people safe.

But so long as she continues to struggle with the decisions she makes and whether or not she’s done the right thing, she’ll stay on camped across that good line.

You may be asking yourself, how is this satire? Well, it’s subtle. Paradox and dichotomies help us focus on our satirical intent and gives us new ways to exaggerate or understand or otherwise highlight our main message and its parts.

What paradoxes are you a fan of? Let me know in the comments below.

 

 

 

Breaking Down Satire: Chekhov’s Gun

Tags

blood phoenix saga, blood phoenix: claimed, blood phoenix: rebirth, Breaking Down Satire, Chekhov's Gun, false premises, foreshadowing, literary device, the broken world series, writing payoff

Chekhov’s Gun comes from the saying, “If in Act I, you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act,” although the version I heard was a bit different as it featured a table instead of a wall, and many variations exist. In any case, the lesson comes in foreshadowing and cohesion, and Anton Chekhov’s point was that every element introduced in a story should serve a function.

Essentially, Chekhov’s Gun means not making false promises or creating red herrings by introducing important details, elements, or themes without following through with a purpose for it. Why note it otherwise? Often mixed up with foreshadowing, which hints or makes a reader aware of a specific element or detail but doesn’t bring special attention to it.

But let’s clear up one more thing: Every single plot point or detail does not need to be massively meaningful. The blue curtains might not mean melancholy or depression, as I’ve heard so many students groan when we analyze stories in class. The elements or items must play a significant role when presented in a dramatic way or receives special focus.

 

More interestingly, Chekhov’s Gun does not have to be an item like a gun. Scenes, memories, and characters quirks, etc. can all be used in tandem to propel a story forward, and to keep from confusing readers, false guns should be eradicated. Even if they’re your darlings.

Personally, I come across these when I’m stuck writing. Details I don’t know are significant until I have a hurdle to get over often reveals a gun I didn’t know I placed on the wall—or table in my case—and my subconscious is far smarter than I like to give it credit for.

Okay, before I delve into my own uses too deeply (am I setting myself up here or what?), I want to show how this links to satire. Well, typically that focal point reflects the main cause for criticism. We take special note of facts, characters, and events in satire, so we highlight them in dramatic ways in order to make our arguments.

 

For instance, control is one of my big-hitter satirical notes as a sister to conformity. Once Ria wakes up as a vampire, she attacks her maker, drinking his blood and receiving a lecture about how his blood will not benefit her. Well, this serves two gun-like purposes.

One, control plays up throughout book one, but in a big moment, when Ria’s captured and held by the Assetato, they feed her a little girl. The on-going practice of wrangling her hunger, of maintaining control over the new animal inside of her, and trying not to hurt humans comes to a culmination when the child is offered to her. This also hits that satirical note of not letting what others do to her control her actions. She’s strong-minded and individual, and she will not conform. It’s a pretty consistent theme for me in each story I write, but it manifests in several, different ways.

And two, the emphasis on the benefits of paranormal blood becomes a serious issue in book two, CLAIMED, and if I’m being super honest, for the rest of the series, it grows into something that keeps control over her. See what I did there? Okay, cheekiness aside, her need for paranormal blood means a couple of drawbacks: she’ll need consistent volunteers—okay, maybe not a complete drawback given the three men in her life—and it also marks her as the anomaly she is. The scary bit is coming in book four, which I’ve just started drafting.

Much like the need and the control, this is a double-whammy gun moment. But Ria’s worst fears from the end of REBIRTH, book one, will finally come to fruition. Her secrets are going to be revealed, and she’s going to suffer the consequences of her birth. It should be an interesting and nasty experience.

Over the years, I’ve gotten a better handle on Chekhov’s Gun, but I wasn’t always so great at it. Naturally, writers seems to use this technique in some way to create twists and turns in a plot, but we certainly can generate more impact when we understand the usefulness of hanging that gun on the wall in Act I.

 

Let me know what you think of Chekhov’s Gun and how you use it in the comments below!

Happy reading and writing y’all.

Breaking Down Satire: Hyperbole, Exaggeration, & Understatement

Tags

absolute equality, Breaking Down Satire, child slave labor, exaggeration examples, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., hyperbole explained, satirical elements, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K le Guin, understatement, writing process

Hyperbole is one of the best ways to create a satirical message as the majority of an audience can easily understand exaggeration. This is because it is meant to generate strong feelings or effect. And there’s a good chance that hyperbole will catch a reader’s attention.

Besides, readers are attracted to this type of language because we use hyperbole in our everyday speech, especially in our youth: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse or my mom is going to kill me.

And we all have the natural tendency to exaggerate as it makes our stories funnier and more dramatic. This is how we create characters that are larger than life. We can focus on particular causes or issues without needing to delve into the far-reaching complexities of the real world. If satire does nothing else, it certainly means to make a specific point, so hyperbole is supremely helpful.

One of my favorite examples is in “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., which is probably why I teach it every semester. The themes of equality and Communism are exaggerated to create an extremely oppressed society. Forced to be the same as the lowest-common denominator, progress stalls, people are tortured, and no one bats an eye at the live execution that takes place on television.

Even better is the depiction of Harrison as a character. A behemoth at seven-foot tall with super strength and smarts and good looks that would put Thor to shame. When he chooses his Empress—after prematurely claiming his rule as Emperor by stamping his foot and threatening those in the TV studio—the two of them dance and leap to the touch the ceiling, and defy gravity by hovering there for minutes, kissing.

Well, this exaggeration serves two purposes: one, to indicate how even in an oppressed society, evolution will still create strong offspring to advance a species. No dictatorship can squash this completely. And two, to show how when grace, intelligence, and beauty are suppressed, any hint at true talent will seem miraculous. This plays well into his overall message that absolute equality is not possible.

On the other side, understatement expresses an idea with less strength than expected. Again, we use these often in our daily lives: I’ll be there in one second or this won’t hurt one bit.

This creates a casual or offhanded message about something quite serious.

Once again, I gleam an example from the stories I teach in class, this time in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. She goes to great length to establish a utopia. In fact, she takes half the story to convince us that this place, Omelas, can exist, which sets up her message well.

In one last ditch effort to make believers out of us, she casually gives us the image of a naked child in a basement closet, festering in his excrement, barely eating, and shown no kindness. He is the trade that the people make for their luxuriously happy lives. And he’s shown to us in an offhanded way that tells the audience how the people need to think of him in order to maintain said happiness.

The understatement comes in how much focus she imparts on the people and their needs and psyches rather than the child’s and creates a perfect metaphor for first-world problems verses third-world problems, how societies are built off of stomping on others, like the trend of companies utilizing overseas sweatshops and child slave labor to provide us with cheap and easily accessible products. (By us, I’m speaking personally as a lower-middle-class American). In fact, one of my favorite examples is Apple, who put nets around their Chinese factories to keep workers from killing themselves. I’m sure if you do a quickie internet search, you’ll find more examples of this than you can stomach for the companies you buy from, which is why I advocate for voting with your dollar.

Okay, that’s hyperbole/exaggeration and understatement and a great way to launch this year’s focus on satirical elements and tools.

I hope you join me next month for satirical violence.

 

In the meantime, leave me your favorite hyperbolic or understated expressions and examples in the comments below.