Satire and Allegory


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. 

(From The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised) in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
 
"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."

 Jonathan Swift (From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations in Quotations)

 

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.

(From The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised) in English Dictionaries & Thesauruses)
Oxford Reference Online - Power Library
 

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