Satire 

The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. 

Titles

Aesop - (c. 620–560 BCE) - Fables

Aristophanes - (c. 448–380 BCE) The Frogs, The Birds, The Clouds

Chaucer - Canterbury Tales

Rabelais - Gargantua, Pantagruel

Cervantes - Don Quixote

Shakespeare - A Midsummer's Night Dream

Moliere - The Misanthrope

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels

Voltaire - Candide

Poe - A Predicament

Dickens - Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities

Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland

Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Ernest

Aldous Huxley - Brave New World

George Orwell - Animal Farm, Nineteen-Eighty-Four

Dr, Seuss - The Lorax, Butter Battle Book

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions

Joseph Heller - Catch-22

Gunter Grass - The Tin Drum

Heinlein - Starship Troopers

Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

Bertolt Brecht - Beggar's Opera

Karel Capek - R.U.R.

Gore Vidal - A Visit to a Small Planet

Margaret Atwood - A Handmaid's Tale

Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities

Terry Pratchett - Discworld Series

 

Other Satirists

Dave Barry - humorist

Lenny Bruce - stand-up comedian

Stanley Kubrick - film, Dr. Strangelove

Mel Brooks - film, Blazing Saddles

Woody Allen - films and plays

George Carlin - stand-up comedian

Frank Zappa - musician

Gary Trudeau - cartoonist - Doonsberry

Gary Larson - cartoonist - The Farside

Matt Groening - The Simpsons, Futurama

Howard Stern - radio

High Laurie - actor

Jon Stewart - The Daily Show

Stephen Colbert - The Colbert Report

Seth MacFarlane - Family Guy

Ann Coulter - political pundit and satirist

Trey Parker & Matt Stone - South Park

Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat

 

Publications & Television

Humor Times (magazine)

The Onion (magazine)

MAD Magazine

 

The Simpsons

Howard Stern Show

The Daily Show

The Colbert Report

South Park

Nip/Tuck

Seinfeld

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Family Guy

30 Rock

 

Films

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - religion

Blazing Saddles - racism

Casino Royale - spies

This is Spinal Tap - heavy metal

Clueless -

Dr. Strangelove - war

Starship Troopers - military

Harold and Kumar fims -

South Park movie - censorship

Fight Club - life and mental health

American History X - racism

American Psycho

1984

Brave New World

Gattaca

Animal House

Slaughterhouse-Five

Brazil

M*A*S*H

Being There

 

Allegory

A story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

Sometimes, animals are used to represent humans.

Aesop, according to legend, was put to death for using his allegorical fables to criticize the powerful.

Titles

Ovid - Metamorphoses (Orpheus Myth) - archetypal journey

Apuleius - Psyche and Cupid - soul's struggle with sexual passion

Everyman - lead righteous life for heavenly reward

Gilgamesh - quest for immortality

Plato - The Repblic - change from the world of the senses to the "eternal good"

Homer - The Odyssey - epic as allegory

Beowulf - paganism & Christianity

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - original sin & the triumph of chivalry over evil

Chaucer - Canterbury Tales - everyone's pilgrimage toward spirituality

Thomas Malory - le Morte d'Arthur - quest for the Holy Grail

Dante - Divine Comedy - free wil and heaven or hell

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels - scientific, political & intellectual worlds of the 18th century

Daniel Defoe - Robison Crusoe - spiritual journey or political exile

Henry Fielding - Tom Jones - allegorical aspects

Christopher Marlowe - Dr. Faustus - price for self-knowledge

John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's Progress - Christian 's life journey

Nathanial Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter - morality

H.G. Wells - The Time Machine - man's exploitation of man

Eugene O'Neill - The Hairy Ape - alienation of modern man

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness - "native" human experience

Saul Bellow - Henderson Rain King - chooing meaning in life

J.M. Coetzee - In the Heart of the Country - life under apartheid

Edgar Allen Poe  - Masque of the red Death - rationalism, mortality

Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

C.S. Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia - Christian

                    The Space Trilogy - materialism & perverted science

Robert Lewis Stevenson - Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde - duality of good and evil

Karel Capek - R.U.R. - mechanization and spiritual sterility

Samuel Beckett - Endgame - physical & psychological devastation of atomic warfare

                            Waiting for Godot - man's need for salvation

George Orwell - Animal Farm - establishment of the Soviet Union

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray - problems of aestheticism, "life as art" or fall from innocence

Herman Melvile - The Confidence Man - assult on political & moral crisis of the 19th century

                            Moby-Dick - allegorical elements

Voltaire - Candide - attack on optimist philosophy of Leibniz

Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man - African American experience

Stephen King - Running Man - desensitized and dehumanized society

Albert Camus - The Plague -

William Golding - Lord of the Flies - origin of original skin

J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings - said to be confrontation between the Axis & Allied powers during WW II

Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain - civilization on te brink of WW I

Jane Austin - Mansfield Park - Virtue is rewarded, sin is punished

Art Spiegelman - Maus - portrayal is allegorical, not story

Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Christ-like figure & sacrifice

Harold Pinter - The Birthday Party - pressures of conformity

Mario Vargas Llosa - The War at the End of the World - messianic dreams are questionable

Richard Adams - Watership Down - modern "progress", bravery

Edward Albee - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - decline of America & the values of the founders

Henrik Ibsen - The Wild Duck - modern life in the industrial age

Childrens' Stories

Aesop - Fables

Fairy Tales - archetypal characters

Kenneth Grahame - The Wind & the Willows - social class system

L. Frank Baum - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - election issues of 1896

Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials series - Heaven & Hell, Christianity

 

Films

Alien - the body and pregnancy

Godzilla - effects of radioactivity after Hiroshima

Planet of the Apes - racism

Silent Running - ecological responsibility, civic duty and self-interest

Day of the Dead - Reaganite militarism

Night of the Living Dead - satire on family life

E.T.: The Extra Terestrial - savior

Starship Troopers - fascism

District 9 - apartheid

 Metropolis

The Seventh Seal

2001: A Space Odyssey

El Topo

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, the Cold War

The Matrix, Plato's Allegory of the Cave

The Virgin Suicides