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Personification
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
Act 2, Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Political Preaching:
In Act 2, Scene 2, Lord Goring and Robert Chiltern discuss Chiltern’s impending crisis—Mrs. Chaveley has blackmailed him into giving a speech in support of a fraudulent project to Parliament. As Goring lays out Chiltern’s options, Wilde takes the opportunity to sneak in some acerbic satire of London society:
Besides, if you did make a clean breast of the whole affair, you would never be able to talk morality again. And in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician. There would be nothing left for him as a profession except Botany or the Church. A confession would be of no use. It would ruin you.
Related Themes:
