Comparing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
In 1967, Tom Stoppard wrote his famous play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead after getting the idea while watching a production of Hamlet. Four years later, Douglas Adams got the idea for his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1978, he would use this idea to produce a BBC radio show, which would be published as a novel in 1979. How can these two works be compared in their use of satire and cynicism?
There are many instances of satire in Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Adams begins his novel by describing the sun and goes on to say, "Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea." (1) By saying this, Adams shows that he does not think much of how humans are using technology, or their intelligence because they are so amazed by something fairly simple. According to Whissen, "Adam's message . . . is that too much thinking about things like the vastness of eternity and space and time can drive one mad. But instead of worrying about it, he takes control of it." (113) By presenting actual numbers, Adams puts the earth into the universe's perspective. Though humans tend to make themselves the center of the universe, they are actually a small insignificant speck in everything. Adams goes on to explain more about the humans and their plight. "Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because . . . it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." (1) While making a joke about humans and their general discontentedness, Adams takes a different look at the monetary system. People feel that money will make them happy, but it does not really work. Money is constantly being moved, yet that is not what is unhappy. People try to change other things to make themselves happy, but by this, Adams is suggesting that people should try to change themselves, rather than everything else.
Satire can be defined as any work in which a human vice or folly is attacked with irony or sarcasm. An example of satire can be found in the song "When the President Talks to God" by Bright Eyes. In this song, the lyrics lay out hypothetical conversations between the President and God, which mocks current President George W. Bush and his use of strong religious influence while in office.
Satire is a technique used in literature to criticize the faults of society. An excellent examle of contemporary satire is Kurt Vonnegut's novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. The author tells the life of Eliot Rosewater, a young and affluent man troubled by the plights of the poor. Eliot is the President of the Rosewater Foundation, a sum of money worth approximately $87 million. Using this position, he does everything he can to help the poor. This charity giving is socially unacceptable to the wealthy, particularly Eliot's father Senator Lister Ames Rosewater. Vonnegut uses caricature, irony, and tone to satirize the lack of care the rich have for those socially "beneath them."
An example of satire that Kurt Vonnegut uses is when he designs the government of San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo is a small island somewhere in the Caribbean. The people in San Lorenzo are doomed to failure no matter what leader they have, and they have always been this way. San Lorenzo, in the novel, is pictured as one of the most unsuccessful and useless places on earth. The people there are very poor, do not have much to eat, and do not have any motivation left at all, "Johnson and McCabe had failed to raise the people from the misery and muck" (Scholes 133). Thus, that is why they do not care anymore who there leader is going to be, because they know that they are going to fail anyway, "Everybody was bound to fail, for San Lorenzo was as unproductive as an equal area i...
The Hunger Games and Fahrenheit 451 are both great examples of dystopian fiction. A dystopia is a fictional world that takes place in the future that is supposed to be perceived as a perfect society, but it’s actually the opposite. Other things that a dystopian society might display are citizens both living in a dehumanized state and feeling like they’re constantly watched by a higher power. Dystopias are places where society is backwards or unfair, and they are usually are controlled by the government, technology, or a particular religion. The Hunger Games and Fahrenheit 451 are both in the dystopian fiction genre because the societies within them show the traits of a dystopia. Both of them also have characters that go against the flow of the normal world.
“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” These are three demands for the writing of fiction. By following these demands, an author sparks interest in his/her work. “Make them wait” is a signifigant in creating the interest in the novels The Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies. This essay will explain how making the reader wait creates interest in the two novels stated earlier.
Satire in American literature has evolved in response to the development of the American mind, its increasing use of free will, and the context that surrounds this notion. Satire is the biting wit that authors (labeled satirists) bring to their literature to expose and mock the follies of society. Satirists can be divided, however, into two groups with very different purposes. One type mocks simply for the enjoyment of mocking. These satirists are found almost everywhere in the world, on every street corner, household, and television sitcom. It is the second type of satirist who is a strong force in the world of literature. The satirical author will mock to heighten the reader's awareness of the problems that threaten to destroy the world that they believe has so much potential. They do this with the hope that their satire will encourage others to better society. "I have often hoped that the arts could be wonderfully useful in times of trouble" (32) says the writer who is perhaps the king of this second type of American satire, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Vonnegut uses his literature to help guide a disillusioned America, in which free will has been fundamental since the writing of the Constitution. As a humanist, Vonnegut uses the idea of free will as a constant motif in his writing. He believes that every soul has the freedom to do anything, but that the problem with society is that people lack direction. Free will, used as a theme in Timequake, is an enormous responsibility. Acknowledging the free will that one has also involves accepting the responsibility that is necessary to use this privilege in a way that will benefit humanity. In several essay...
There is a famous expression about three demands of writing fiction. It goes, “Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” By following these needs, an author can spark interest in his or her work. In the novels The Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Rings, the novelists utilize the latter requirement, “Make them wait.” This essay will show how the authors use that specific demand in their novels.
Thoughtful laughter is a technique used frequently in satirical pieces in literature. It allows for the audience to enjoy the wittiness of a work, later ponder on the meaning, and then apply the message to reality. Thoughtful laughter is often an inner experience that can only be achieved by authors who write meticulously. Two examples of satirical works in literature that display this concept explicitly are Voltaire’s Candide and C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. Both authors explore the depths of satire and simultaneously deliver an important message to readers through skillful technique.
Have you ever wanted to free yourself from the terrors and troublesome times of modern society and escape to a magical place? Clive Staples Lewis, or C.S. Lewis as he is better known, created such a place, in his extremely popular children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. In these books, Lewis has an underlying message about Christianity. He represents four key aspects of Christianity in this series: Christ and God, evil in the world, and faith.
C.S. Lewis was one of the greatest know fictional writers; he created a wonderful series of books called The Chronicles of Narnia. His real name was Clive Staples Lewis but also his friends called him “Jack”. He was born on November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Ireland. C.S. Lewis was married to Joy Davidman, his father was Albert James Lewis and his mother was Florence Augusta Lewis. He is best known for his fictional work and for his non-fictional Christian apologetics. When Lewis was a little boy him and his brother created the world of Boxen, also he had a fascination with anthropomorphic animals falling in love with Beatrix Potter’s and often writing and illustrating his own animal stories. When C.S. Lewis was a teenager most of his writings moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began using different art forms to try to capture his new-found interest in Norse mythology and the natural world. In 1916 he was awarded a scholarship at University of Oxford.
It is regular learning that C. S. Lewis is a Christian and much, if not every, of hello there composing is attached to Christianity or philosophy in some structure or way. A regular response to C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is one of a Christian nature. Lewis is undoubtedly very purposeful in his utilization of imagery in Narnia. What is maybe not as normally known, on the other hand, it is safe to say that is, that the same kind of imagery is utilized as a part of a comparable book arrangement. This arrangement is the well known Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.
Divergent and The Hunger Games are two of the most successful movies released in 2014. The movies attracted a large number of viewers who were able to connect with the characters and the story being told. Many people found themselves getting emotionally involved in the characters lives. In both movies, it is easy to find yourself rooting for the underdog and hoping that only the best happens in the end. Both movies are remarkably similar because they feature similar strong female leads, display omnipotent authority, practice dystopian societies, and have a clear distinction between good versus evil.
Satire is defined as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues” (Oxford). The best satirical writers can make the reader believe that an idea is “logical and practical.” This is seen in great abundance in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World. Through his writing, Huxley uses satire to effectively point out the flaws of society at the time. Even though Brave New World was written in 1931, the satirical points Huxley makes are still relevant in today’s world.
In general, research agrees on the idea that different aspects of behaviour are mediated by distinctive parts of the brain; a concept referred to as localization of function (in Banich, 2004). With the brain consisting of various components each providing support for different mental processes the principle of localization of function poses that certain regions of the brain are circumscribed to specific locations (in Banich, 2004)....
Satire is used "not just to remind us of our common often ridiculous humanity, but rather to expose those moral excesses, those corrigible sorts of behaviour which transgress what the writer sees as the limits of acceptable moral behaviour" (Johnston). Uses of satire, such as Swift’s A Modest...