Satire

Base XP: 30

Learning Target(s):


  • Evaluate how literary elements, techniques, and devices enhance and shape meaning and impact
  • Think critically, creatively, and reflectively to analyze ideas within, between, and beyond texts


Satire is a literary work that makes fun of a subject through techniques such as exaggeration, reversal, incongruity and parody with the aim of making a statement or criticism.

Satirical Techniques Definitions

  • Exaggeration To enlarge, increase, or represent something beyond normal bounds so that it becomes ridiculous and its faults can be seen. Caricature is the exaggeration of a physical feature or trait. Cartoons, especially political cartoons, provide extensive examples of caricature. Burlesque is the ridiculous exaggeration of language. For instance, when a character who should use formal, intelligent language speaks like a fool or a character who is portrayed as uneducated uses highly sophisticated, intelligent language.
  • Incongruity To present things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to its surroundings. Particular techniques include oxymoron, metaphor, and irony.
  • Parody To imitate the techniques and/or style of some person, place, or thing in order to ridicule the original. For parody to be successful, the reader must know the original text that is being ridiculed. Pay special mind to text-text and text-to-world connections here, references to other pieces of literature, movies, and/or people or historical/current events.
  • Reversal To present the opposite of the normal order. Reversal can focus on the order of events, such as serving dessert before the main dish or having breakfast for dinner. Additionally, reversal can focus on hierarchical order—for instance, when a young child makes all the decisions for a family or when an administrative assistant dictates what the company president decides and does.

Consider the common characteristics of a fairy tale:

  1. "Once upon a time in a land far, far away"
  2. clear good and evil characters
  3. beautiful princess, handsome prince
  4. hero and damsel in distress
  5. lesson, moral or theme
  6. happy ending "They lived happily ever after"

Now, view these excerpts from the movie Shrek and take note of moments where these common characteristics are missing or demonstrated in juxtaposing ways.

Referring back to the satirical techniques definitions, try to identify at least one example where exaggeration incongruity, parody, and reversal are used.


Respond to this task using a method from your Ways of Knowing and Showing Understanding. It could be any format you desire, as long as it shows strong understanding of the concepts.

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Continue developing these skills by moving on to A Modern Proposal next.