Satirical Devices

Question 1

Humor

Answer 1

Understatement: Fielding’s description of a grossly fat and repulsively ugly Mrs. Slipslop: “She was not remarkably handsome.”

Question 2

Irony

Answer 2

Literary device in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what one says or does, and what one means or what is generally understood.

Question 3

Invective

Answer 3

Name calling, personal abuse, etc.

Question 4

Mock Encomium

Answer 4

Praise which is only apparent and which suggests blame instead

Question 5

Grotesque

Answer 5

Creating a tension between laughter and horror or revulsion; the essence of all “sick humor: or “black humor”

Question 6

Comic Juxtaposition

Answer 6

Linking together with no commentary items which normally do not go together; Pope’s line in Rape of the Lock: “Puffs, patches, bibles, and billet-doux”

Question 7

Mock Epic/Mock Heroic

Answer 7

Using elevated diction and devices from the epic or the heroic to deal with low or trivial subjects

Question 8

Parody

Answer 8

Mimicking the style and/or techniques of something or someone else

Question 9

Inflation

Answer 9

Taking a real-life situation and blowing it out of proportion to make it ridiculous and showcase its faults

Question 10

Diminution

Answer 10

Taking a real-life situation and reducing it to make it ridiculous and showcase its faults