Satire Desire

In class yesturday, we read a very interesting piece of writing. It was called,"A Modest Proposal," and it was by Johnathan Swift. The story is a strange piece of writing until you realize that it is a style called satire.


Wikipedia says satire is a simple genre of writing that uses wit and humor to portray a deeper meaning or idea. In Swift's essay, he said that he thought that the poor Irish families should just sell the young children they couldn't feed and then they wouldn't be poor, there would be more food, and there would be less overcrowding. He was kinding of course but what he was saying that the ideas that people were giving out for how to solve this problem were no better than this plan so why don't we just you his. that and the fact that no one was using the simple solutions that were obvious to everyone.



As I was considering satire and what it meant, it reminded me of a play I was in called Arsenic and Old Lace. This show is about two old ladies who, thinking that they are suffering from old age and can't stand their complaining, decide to put old men out of their misery by killing them. This causes problems for their whole family. the idea seemed very similar to what swift was doing but when I looked it up I found it was different. They called it a farce, very similar to a satire but it has no real underlying meaning. I agree that there isn't really any other meaning than for entainment.

Sweeney Todd was another show that came to mind when you think about killing and an underlying meaning. In this show, Sweeney is tormented by troubles and he can't stand his life so he draws the conclusion that all people must be as miserable as he is and they must want to die. And he also decides that those who are rich and wicked to people like him don't deserve to live. This is definently a new idea, but was it funny? I realized that this was more horror and thrill than comedy. That doesn't really have a genre but it isn't satire.

So maybe these weren't satire but it brought up a different thought: what can we do to stop these depressing thoughts that so many people have? I think it really comes down to knowing that we need to care for each other regardless of their class level or misery. you can't make death the option when people are sad or cruel, lest we become as those master who doth control us. And that will lead world to nothing good.