Targeting America:

Greed, Violence, Simulacra, Delusion, Injustice and

inequality,
Neo-colonialism
And so it goes

20th Century Satire: Targeting

America
1) Menippean Satires Afterlife: Novels, short stories
2) Kurt Vonnegut: Americas Swift
3) Peter Carey: The American Dream & Simulacra
4) Jamaica Kincaid: Neo-Colonialism & the Ugly Tourist

The Afterlife of Menippean

Satire

Satire in narrative form maintains some of the key features of more pure
Menippean satire like that of Rabelais or Carroll, but it often dispenses
with the mixing of prose and poetry and the radical lack of plot.
BUT it still:
Parodies other genres
Contains characters as mouthpieces (Menippean blood)
Often contains a fantastical or absurd reality (and uses the grotesque)
Contains a character who can be seen as an ingnu[e] (sometimes the
narrator)
Attacks varied targets including: systematization, dominant
philosophies, going opinions.

Kurt Vonnegut (19222007)

20th Century Americas foremost
satirist.
Known for his satiric criticism of
American politics and culture,
capitalism, imperialism,
warmongering, and racism.
He wrote 14 novels: e.g., Cat's
Cradle (1963), the anti-war novel
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969),

Where do I get my ideas from? You

might as well have asked that of
Beethoven. He was goofing around in
Germany like everybody else, and all
of a sudden this stuff came gushing
out of him. It was music. I was goofing
around like everybody else in Indiana,
and all of a sudden stuff came
gushing out. It was disgust with

Postmodernism
Describes literature and art after WW II (19391945), which registers the effects on [Western]
morale of the first war [that] were greatly
exacerbated by the experience of Nazi
totalitarianism and mass extermination, [and
later] the threat of total destruction by the atomic
bomb. (Abrams 120).
The Postmodern novel is a form of writing that

Satire and Postmodern

Literature

Like satire, postmodernist texts are often a

form of cultural criticism that de-naturalizes
and de-familiarizes existing power
structures and systems of belief: the social
myths that structure society.
Both satire and postmodernist texts
confront and undermine overarching
structures and ideologies, such as
capitalism, patriarchy, and the philosophical

We Americans require symbols which are

richly colored and three-dimensional and juicy.
Most of all, we hunger for symbols which have
not been poisoned by great sins our nation
has committed, such as slavery and genocide
and criminal neglect, or by tinhorn
commercial greed and cunning (300-1).

1492
That was simply the year in which sea
pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.
Here was another piece of evil nonsense
which children were taught: that the sea
pirates eventually created a government
which became a beacon of freedom to
human beings everywhere else (10).

There were pictures and

statues of this supposed
imaginary beacon for
children to see. It was a
sort of an ice-cream cone
on fire. It looked like this:
(10-11).

Capitalism
Earthlings who had a lot shouldnt share
it with others unless they really wanted to,
and most of them didnt want to. So they
didnt have to.
Everybody in America was supposed to
grab whatever he could and hold on to it.
Some Americans were very good at
grabbing and holding, were fabulously wellto-do. Others couldnt get their hands on

The grand narratives/myths of American

supremacy, nobility, and ideals of freedom are
demolished.

America is re-defined as a nation founded on

genocide, racism, capitalist greed, and the
unequal distribution of wealth.

Peter Carey (1943- )

http://petercareybooks.com

Peter Careys American

Dreams
American Dreams is in his collection The
Fat Man in History (1974).
Careys stories often comment on Americas
neo-colonial impact on Australia, its
economic and cultural influence.

Mr. Gleason as a Satirist

This voyeuristic removal of rooftops is an allusion to a famous
16th-century French satire Le Diable boiteux (1707).
In this story, a demon named Asmodeus tears off rooftops to
reveal peoples private sins and hypocrisies.
Mr. Gleason is essentially a satirist who uses art to expose the
vanities and follies of the towns American dreamers.
The narrator insists: I personally believe that he knew everything
that would happen (153).

The Americans pay one dollar for the right

to take our photographs. Having paid the
money they are worried about being
cheated. They spend their time being
disappointed and I spend my time feeling
guilty that I have somehow let them down
by growing older and sadder (157).

Simulacra
Simulacrum (sing.) / Simulacra (pl.) (OED)

a) Something having merely the form or appearance of a

certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper
qualities.
b) A mere image, a specious imitation or likeness of
something.

Umberto Ecos Notion of

Hyperreality
Cultural theorist Umberto Eco believes that Americans in
particular have become entrapped in the industry of the
fake.
In Ecos Travels in Hyperreality, he is an ironic tourist or
anthropologist who travels through the United States to try and
understand the zeal with which Americans are attracted to the
fake!
Tourist sites like Disneyland are capitalist ventures based on
our addiction to simulacra.

Michelle and Barack Obama wax figures on display at

Madame Tussauds http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/07/wax-museum-to-unveil-michelle-

Ocean, Dome in Japan

http://bonjoumesamis.blogspot.ca/2014/08/the-strange-

Dolphin Dream Wedding at

Marineworld!

Carey, Vonnegut, and Eco are most concerned

with the moral or spiritual vacuum created by
the abundance of simulacra in America.
A world of fake art, history, and nature inspires
falsified emotions, empty spirituality, and
absent morality.

Jamaica Kincaid
(1949- )
Antiguan-American writer
For 9 years, she wrote for
The New Yorker (the The
Talk of the Town column)
I literally come from a poor
place. I was a servant. I
dropped out of college. The
next thing you know Im writing
for The New Yorker and it
must seem annoying to
Image b Kenneth Noland

Ive come to see that Im saying something that people

generally do not want to hear. In my writing, Im often
describing a universal situation. A situation in which human
beings often choose to violate each other. Sometimes I
happen to explore that in terms of the black/white dynamic.
And the important thing isnt whether Im angry. The
more important thing is, is it true? Do these things really
happen? (Kincaid).

A Small Place is a jeremiad of great clarity and force that

one might have called torrential were the language not so
finely controlled (Salman Rushdie).

A Small Place (1988): Satirical

Techniques
1) Use of the second-person voice you: the reader is
given the character of being the ignorant white tourist.
2) The narrators persona: an Antiguan, angry, scornful,
blunt, someone still traumatized by the colonial experience
and its lingering effects; voice of the collective, Antiguans
in general
3) Defamiliarization: the nave tourist (a kind of ingnu[e]) is
a target whose ignorant adventures expose he ugliness of
colonial and neo-colonial mentalities.

A Small Place (1988): Satirical

Techniques
4) Repetition: images/phrases; the narrator emphasizes ugly
realities by reiterating them
5) Juxtaposition: the contrast of two opposing things for satiric effect
6) Use of parenthesis: contains extra attacks; reveals anger, added
irony
7) Rhetorical questions: Will you be comforted to know that the
hospital is staffed with doctors that no actual Antiguan trusts?
(8).

The library is one of those splendid old

buildings from colonial times, and the sign
telling of the repairs is a splendid old sign
from colonial times (9).

(isnt that the last straw; for not only did we have to
suffer the unspeakableness of slavery, but the
satisfaction to be had from We made you bastards rich
is taken away, too), and so you neednt let that slightly
funny feeling you have from time to time about
exploitation, oppression, domination develop into fullfledged unease, discomfort; you could ruin your holiday.
They are not responsible for what you have; you own
them nothing; in fact, you did them a big favour (10).

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Hotel_Review-g147243-d148277-Reviews-Sandals_Grande_Antigua_Resort_Spa

Final Exam: Worth 25%

Date: Thursday, June 23rd!
When: During our Thursday class hours (in our Thursday
classroom).
The exam will begin at 11:00 am and end at 1:00 pm.
The format will be the same as the Midterm!
The exam is not open-book.

Next Week
Tuesday: reading: Colbert and Stuart Is Satire Saving
our Nation (Blackbaord) (reading response due 2.5%)
This response will NOT be accepted after Tuesday!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D12pPY8SuHc [the
Queen of V.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUh8FdKuWIg [2007;
Vonnegut]
https://www2.madametussauds.com [Madame Tussauds]