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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
Key Examples in The Way of the World
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—Prologue:
In the prologue, Congreve uses verbal irony (saying the opposite of what he means, through the actor who plays Fainall) to set up the witty satire that is about to follow:
Satire, he thinks, you ought not to expect;
For so reformed a town who dares correct?
To please, this time, has been his sole pretence;
He’ll not instruct, lest it should give offence.
Should he by chance a knave or fool expose,
That hurts none here, sure here are none of those.
In short, our play, shall (with your leave to show it)
Give you one instance of a passive poet.
Who to your judgments yields all resignation;
So save or damn, after your own discretion.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Moralist Bookshelf:
In Act 3, Scene 4, Wishfort tells Marwood to hide in her closet (more of a study than a storage room in this context) while she speaks to Foible and tries to see if Foible and Mirabell are up to something. Wishfort alludes to several moralist works, all on the bookshelf in the closet for Marwood to peruse:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Dear friend, retire into my closet, that I may examine her with more freedom. – You’ll pardon me, dear friend; I can make bold with you. – There are books over the chimney – Quarles and Prynne, and the Short View of the Stage, with Bunyan’s works, to entertain you.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 18
Explanation and Analysis—Honorable Affairs:
In Act 3, Scene 18, Fainall tells Marwood that cheating on his wife is honorable because it takes place within marriage, an "honourable" institution. Fainall's logic here is circular, a fallacy:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[M]arriage is honourable as you say; and if so, wherefore should cuckoldom be a discredit, being derived from so honourable a root?
Related Themes:
