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Oxymorons
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Key Examples in A Room of One's Own
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Serving Girls/Men:
In Chapter 1, the narrator observes the various (all-male) scholars who flit around Oxbridge's campus. She utilizes imagery rather curiously to describe these men, crafting comparison for the purpose of satire:
Certainly, as I strolled round the court, the foundation of gold and silver seemed deep enough; the pavement laid solidly over the wild grasses. Men with trays on their heads went busily from staircase to staircase.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Professor von X:
In Chapter 2, the narrator uses satire to describe the works male authors have written about women, using an ironic tone to criticize male writers' misplaced sense of authority. In the following passage, she imagines a fictive scholar named "Professor von X" penning a misogynistic diatribe:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I had been drawing a face, a figure. It was the face and the figure of Professor von X. engaged in writing his monumental work entitled The Mental, Moral, and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex. He was not in my picture a man attractive to women. [...] He was very red in the face. His
expression suggested that he was labouring under some emotion that made him jab his pen on the paper as if he were killing some noxious insect as he wrote.
Related Themes:
