Monday, January 30 through Friday, February 3, applying satirical rules to two satirical works.

WELCOME BACK....We are in the 3rd quarter and half through the year.

Learning targets:

I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

I can determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

I can analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama.

I can write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

I can develop the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience's knowledge of the topic.

I can provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

This week we are looking at written satire, specifically two works, one contemporary and another of historical significance.

As everyone should be refreshed, this seems the best time to work with more challenging material.

1. Take a look at the following ways satirists make fun. (Remember the objective behind satire "is supposed to prick people's consciences and challenge the powerful" to ultimately improve society (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31442441).

 Take your time and read slowly. Look up any words you are unfamiliar with and ask for help. You will be referencing this material for the actual assignment.

2. Once you have finished the Seven Golden Rules, you will find two pieces of satire: the contemporary A Recipe by Jenna Friedman and Jonathan Swift's, who was also the author of the satirical Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal.

3. Using the framework of the Seven Golden Rules, read the two satirical pieces. As you do so, take notes- that means textual evidence- as to where you see examples of the golden rules within the text.

4. What are you going to do after you take these notes? You shall respond to the following in a well-written essay: In what ways do Friedman in A Recipe and Swift's in A Modest Proposal utilize the seven golden rules to "prick people's consciousness and challenge the powerful" and how effective are their techniques? 

word count: minimum 500 words.

Note: you will not be writing your own satirical piece. And this will probably be the most difficult piece of writing you will do this year. Make sure to cite within the text the work you are referencing. 

5. When is this due? Friday, February, 3 at then end of class.  Any material received after that time is worth only 50 points. Those of you who receive extensions, your essay is due by midnight Friday.

6. There should nothing plugged into your computer. Use the time productively. (SILENTLY)

IMPORTANT
Additional notes: when you are reading, consider literary elements as a vehicle to express the satire: characterization, tone, attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience, mood, evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions. imagery (visual, auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, olfactory, point of view (1st / 3rd) and irony (three types: verbal irony (the use of words to mean something different than what they appear to mean, situational irony (the difference between what is expected to happen and what actually happens and dramatic irony (when the audience is more aware of what is happening than a character).

                        I'll use the standard ELA rubric. There is a copy at the end of the blog. Before sending along your assignment, compare your work with the rubric.

The following is excerpted from Seven Golden Rules of Writing Satire by Gregor Stonach.

                                                                                                     

A. Making fun of individual people. This is perhaps the easiest of all satire. There are two ways of approaching this, and the method through which it is achieved depends on the nature of the person you're attacking – I mean, lampooning. Should the person upon whom you have decided to heap your scorn be quite clearly a total buffoon or a woeful sportsperson, the methodology is simple. Merely quote them, or describe their exploits.

The harder targets are the smarter ones; in cases like this, it's often best to descend into puerile or infantile ramblings.

B. Making fun of groups of people. This is slightly more difficult than making fun of a smart person, and there are several pitfalls to be avoided. First of all, before you rush out and begin making gags based on racial stereotypes, make sure you can claim some sort of connection to the group you're talking about, however tangential that connection might be. The only people who can get up on stage, or put pen to paper and talk about how all Italians are like the Sopranos, or how all Asian folks know Kung Fu but can't drive, are members of those communities. For a middle class white man to make those remarks, it's racism. But if you're a member of a minority, it ceases to be racism, and becomes 'holding up a mirror to the world', or 'telling it like it is. 

C. Lampooning Politics.  Making a gag that has a reader laughing guiltily, blushing furiously and thinking quietly to themselves 'if my pseudo-intellectual friends catch me laughing about the plight of the Haitian people, I'll never sip chardonnay with them again' is very easy. But approaching the same problem (using Haiti as an example again) from the leftist view, it verges on the impossible to complete the task without resorting to iconoclastic ramblings. 

D. The Facts. How you treat the 'facts' of any matter is vitally important, and there's a scale that needs to be memorised. When dealing with 'facts', it's obviously best to have your facts 100% correct. Next best, surprisingly, is to have them 100% wrong, in case you ever get called on what you've written, and need to fall back on the satirist's best retort: 'It's satire, you moron, and I didn't mean a word of it'. The satirist should always appear aloof and sophisticated, saving angry rants for polite dinner conversation and ensuring that the reader feels included in the writer's air of callous conceit.

E. Making fun of a tragic event. This is a tricky one, but there's a rule of thumb that I have developed that makes the art of lampooning bad news, without fear of overtly offending large slabs of the population. A satirist should skate close to the edge, but never, ever cross the line into truly tasteless humor.

So when assessing a calamitous event to see whether it is fit to be lampooned, one must simply look to the last word in the title of that event. Anything that ends in 'Tragedy' is verboten.  Anything that ends with 'Disaster' is fair game, for example 'The Challenger Disaster'. Anything that ends with 'Bombing' or 'Attack' should be left alone for at least three months, before testing the waters with a few genteel, sombre jokes. 'Killings' should never be touched, but 'Slayings' or 'Shootings' are generally ripe for the satirists attention within a week of the final burial. Naturally, 'Scandal' should be leapt upon within seconds and devoured like ice cream on a scalding hot day, except for anything that ends in '-gate', in which case the satire should best be left to the mainstream press and their hamfisted attempts to 'expose the truth'.

F. Religion. It's the modern satirist's minefield, so beware – the laughs could land you some serious karmic retribution, in jail, on the wrong end of a Holy War or an eternity in a fiery afterlife, depending on who you manage to annoy. 

G. Yourself. The most important weapon in the arsenal of the satirist is a rifle made entirely of self-deprecation. The knack is to beat the reader – and, more importantly, the object of your satire – to the punch.  Be prepared to debase yourself on a million levels, and in the instance of satirising yourself, comical overstatement is paramount. Not only will it provide your audience with an instant sense of relief should you inadvertently offend them, but it's also a relatively cheap form of therapy. You can also use this arena to admit your 'sins' before the eyes of God, safe from the long arm of the law – after all, it's satire, isn't it? None of it, no matter how truthful, will stand up in court.

Illustration by JooHee Yoon

Warning: This dish contains nuts.

With the Inauguration..., I thought I’d share an old family recipe, of Italian origin, passed down to my grandmother from her aunt in Germany. The ingredients have been tweaked to appeal to American tastes.

by Jenna Friedman

 Warning: This dish contains nuts.

INGREDIENTS:

• ¼ of all eligible voters (or less, depending on how many votes you can suppress)

• 1 charismatic leader with a wildly successful book, TV show, or film (and weird facial or head hair)

• 1 gaggle of Russian hackers

• 1 well-timed WikiLeak

• 1 rogue F.B.I. director (or other high-level government official)

• A dollop of racism

• A spritz of anti-Semitism

• A sprinkle of idiocy (for a low-fat version, substitute applesauce for idiocy)

• The media 

PREPARATION:

1. Preheat the planet to record temperatures to accelerate climate change, and trigger a global refugee crisis. Put the refugee crisis aside and let it rise. It will come into play later.

2. Next, you’ll need a melting pot, or the illusion of one. Mix a colorful figure (preferably orange) into a liberal but fractured democracy, where the left has been weakened by infighting and the right has been reduced by impotent leadership.

Note: The figure may curdle the dish, unless he appears at first to be a joke, a clown, or a total idiot. Add the media here to help emulsify.

3. Allow the mixture to congeal into a malignant orange mass, and let it stew in the pot for several months, heating the populace with racist rhetoric. Now that the refugee crisis has risen, knead it back into the mixture, along with any leftover xenophobia, bigotry, or fears of terrorism lying around in your cupboard.

Note: This recipe calls specifically for Islamic terrorism. Even a small splash of domestic terrorism (often a by-product of toxic masculinity and lax gun laws) will sour the mix, so store your terrorisms separately.

4. As for misogyny, a little goes a long way. It’s already everywhere, like salt or CO₂ emissions, so there’s no need to overdo it. But, if you do have a taste for it, you can spice up the dish with a pinch of ass, a small handful of pussy, a smear of telling a candidate who has spent forty years in public service that she looks tired, or a scant cup of sexual-assault accusers paraded around as human shields on live TV. (Fun tip: Add insult to injury by not paying for their hair and makeup!)

Note: If accusers start to bubble up in the pot, put a lid on it immediately by enlisting the F.B.I. director to do something moronic to deflect from snowballing sexual-assault allegations.

5. At this point, everything may begin to boil over. Common sense would call for lowering the temperature, but that would obscure the full, rich (or ostensibly rich, but who really knows without tax returns) flavor. Instead, toss in some outside help to keep the concoction heated but contained, like a D.N.C. hack or another variety of Russian cyber-terrorism (e.g., tampering with voter databases), as no one you are serving will seem to notice these extra ingredients.

Note: To prevent progressives from sticking together, whisk some yolks into the mix. The kids will think it’s béarnaise and eat it right up!

6. Whip the ingredients into a pungent, gravy-like sludge. The early admixture of the media (including social media) will insure the perfect sludginess.

7. Once it seems edible, serve on Election Day. Be advised, however, that this recipe is not meant to appeal to all tastes; in fact, most Americans have never been exposed to this dish and probably won’t be able to stomach it, but as long as they don’t vote (or aren’t able to, thanks to the repeal of key provisions of the Voting Rights Act), your dinner should be a hit!

Yield: Serves 10-12, mostly Trumps but not Tiffany. ♦

A Modest Proposal

For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public

By Jonathan Swift (1729)

(1) It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

(2) I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets.

(3) As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

(4) The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.

(5) I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

(6) I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

(7) I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.

(8) I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.

I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.

(9) Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.

(10) Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.

(11) I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.

(12) For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.

(13) Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.

(14) Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.

(15) Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.

(16) Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.

(17) Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.

(18) Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.