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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Satire </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 15 October 2021. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=satire'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=satire'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=satire'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=DuMaurierG-Camelot.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/DuMaurierG-Camelot.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>From the earliest days of <a href="/entry/proto_sf">Proto SF</a>, satire was its prevailing mode, and this inheritance was evident even after sf proper began in the nineteenth century. <i>The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary</i> defines satire as literary work "in which prevailing vices or follies are held up to ridicule". Proto sf is seldom interested in imagining the societies of other worlds or future times for their own sake; most proto sf of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (by, for example, <a href="/entry/cyrano_de_bergerac">Cyrano de Bergerac</a>, Daniel <a href="/entry/defoe_daniel">Defoe</a>, Francis <a href="/entry/godwin_francis">Godwin</a>, Eliza <a href="/entry/haywood_eliza">Haywood</a>, Robert <a href="/entry/paltock_robert">Paltock</a>, <a href="/entry/restif_de_la_bretonne">Restif de la Bretonne</a> and Jonathan <a href="/entry/swift_jonathan">Swift</a>) created imaginary settings, commonly on <a href="/entry/islands">Islands</a> or on the <a href="/entry/moon">Moon</a>, as a kind of convenient blank slate upon which various societies satirizing the writer's own could be inscribed – commonly a travesty of some particular aspect of it (still a common strategy in sf by <a href="/entry/mainstream_writers_of_sf">Mainstream Writers</a> and in <a href="/entry/genre_sf">Genre SF</a> as well). Therefore, by extension, satire is ancestral to the <a href="/entry/dystopias">Dystopia</a>, and even the <a href="/entry/utopias">Utopia</a> often contains satirical elements. Many critics believe that Sir Thomas <a href="/entry/more_sir_thomas">More</a> intended the reader to take some aspects of <i>Utopia</i> (<b>1516</b> in Latin; trans <b>1551</b>) with a grain of salt. The satire may also take the form of debunking other kinds of literature, as in <i>The True History</i> (second century CE) by <a href="/entry/lucian">Lucian</a>. The wonderful exaggerations of this story poke fun at travellers' tales generally, though its zestful telling suggests a certain sympathy with the inquisitive mind which dotes on such imaginings.</p> <p>It is almost impossible to write a work of fiction set in another world – be it some alien place or our own world in another time – which does not make some sort of statement about the writer's own real world. Thus most sf bears at least a family resemblance to satire. In his critical study <i>New Maps of Hell</i> (<b>1960</b>), Kingsley <a href="/entry/amis_kingsley">Amis</a> argued that dystopian satire rather than technological extrapolation is central to sf (perhaps because his own fiction is largely satirical). It is an easy argument to support, at least in terms of the number of texts that can be cited as evidence.</p> <p>Samuel <a href="/entry/butler_samuel">Butler</a> and Mark <a href="/entry/twain_mark">Twain</a> were supreme among the prominent satirists of the nineteenth century who used sf imagery to make their points; even when we turn to the work of writers considered more central to the development of modern sf, such as Jules <a href="/entry/verne_jules">Verne</a> and H G <a href="/entry/wells_h_g">Wells</a>, we find the satirical element prominent. Wells's <i>The Time Machine</i> (<b>1895</b>), for example, focuses in large part on the relationship of the working classes and the leisured classes, and <i>The War of the Worlds</i> (April-December 1897 <a href="/entry/pearsons_magazine">Pearson's</a>; <b>1898</b>) can be read as an ironic tale in which the UK, the great, technologically advanced colonizing power of the day, is herself subjected to colonization by a technological superior. Satire need not be good-humoured (indeed, that brand of satire said to be descended from Juvenal [AD 60-<i>circa</i> 130] is commonly biting), and both these works by Wells are notably savage, especially <i>The War of the Worlds</i> in its portrait of a demoralized and cowardly population.</p> <p>Among the mainstream writers of the twentieth century who have written important sf satires are Anthony <a href="/entry/burgess_anthony">Burgess</a>, Karel <a href="/entry/capek_karel">Čapek</a>, Anatole <a href="/entry/france_anatole">France</a>, Aldous <a href="/entry/huxley_aldous">Huxley</a>, André <a href="/entry/maurois_andre">Maurois</a>, George <a href="/entry/orwell_george">Orwell</a>, Gore <a href="/entry/vidal_gore">Vidal</a> and Evelyn <a href="/entry/waugh_evelyn">Waugh</a>. It would be impossible to list the innumerable sf satires by less-known writers, but we can pick out Archibald <a href="/entry/marshall_archibald">Marshall</a>'s <i>Upsidonia</i> (<b>1915</b>), Owen <a href="/entry/johnson_owen">Johnson</a>'s <i>The Coming of the Amazons</i> (<b>1931</b>), Frederick Philip <a href="/entry/grove_frederick_philip">Grove</a>'s <i>Consider Her Ways</i> (<b>1947</b>) and Stefan <a href="/entry/themerson_stefan">Themerson</a>'s <i>Professor Minaa's Lecture</i> (<b>1953</b>). The latter two contain many pungent comments on human society by insect intelligences, both being examples of one of the most popular satiric strategies in sf: the use of an alien perspective to allow us to see our own institutions in a fresh light. Indeed, there is a sense in which all satire depends upon just such reversals of perspective, which sf is peculiarly well fitted to supply; satire forces us to look at familiar aspects of our lives with a fresh vision, so that all their absurdity or horror is, so to speak, <i>framed</i>, as in a picture. Jonathan <a href="/entry/swift_jonathan">Swift</a> used intelligent horses in <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> (<b>1726</b>; rev <b>1735</b>), <a href="/entry/voltaire">Voltaire</a> a visiting giant alien from Sirius in <i>Micromegas</i> (in <i>Le Micromégas de Mr. de Voltaire ...</i>, coll <b>1752</b>; trans anon <b>1753</b>), Grant <a href="/entry/allen_grant">Allen</a> a man from the future in <i>The British Barbarians</i> (<b>1895</b>), Lester <a href="/entry/lurgan_lester">Lurgan</a> a visiting Martian in <i>A Message From Mars</i> (<b>1912</b>) and Eden <a href="/entry/phillpotts_eden">Phillpotts</a> a visiting alien lizard in <i>Saurus</i> (<b>1938</b>). (The same strategy is now common in sf television comedy; e.g., <a href="/entry/my_favorite_martian">My Favorite Martian</a> [<i>1963-1966</i>], <a href="/entry/mork_and_mindy">Mork & Mindy</a> [<i>1978-1982</i>] and <a href="/entry/alf">ALF</a> [<i>1986-1990</i>].) Aside from visiting aliens and future dystopias there are many other strategies for producing such shifts of perspective. One such is evident in <i>The Stepford Wives</i> (<b>1972</b>) by Ira <a href="/entry/levin_ira">Levin</a>, filmed as <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/stepford_wives_the">Stepford Wives</a> (<i>1975</i>): sexist masculine attitudes are satirized in a thriller centring on the attractions of passive, substitute robot wives. Indeed, the satirical creation of imaginary societies in which the horrors of our own are writ large is especially common in feminist sf (see <a href="/entry/feminism">Feminism</a>), as in Margaret <a href="/entry/atwood_margaret">Atwood</a>'s <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i> (<b>1985</b>).</p> <p><a href="/entry/robots">Robots</a> are often used in sf satire for a different reason: for their innocence. Because robots are, in theory, not programmed with prejudices, and are given simple ethical systems, they may have a childlike purity that cuts through rationalizations and sophistications. In Philip K <a href="/entry/dick_philip_k">Dick</a>'s <i>Now Wait for Last Year</i> (<b>1966</b>), for example, the hero's moral quandary is amusingly but touchingly resolved by advice from a robot taxi-cab. <a href="/entry/children_in_sf">Children in SF</a> are occasionally used in a similar manner. Both these are simply special cases of the "innocent-observer" strategy first popularized by Voltaire in <i>Candide</i> (<b>1759</b>), in which a naive man, with few expectations of life and a likeable character, is consistently abused and exploited in his travels. Modern sf examples include <i>The Sirens of Titan</i> (<b>1959</b>) by Kurt <a href="/entry/vonnegut_kurt_jr">Vonnegut</a> Jr, in which the hero is a millionaire brainwashed into innocence on Mars, and Robert <a href="/entry/sheckley_robert">Sheckley</a>'s <i>Journey Beyond Tomorrow</i> (<b>1962</b>; vt <i>Journey of Joenes</i> <b>1978</b>), where the traveller is a naive islander who has a terrible time in a future USA. Sheckley was for a time among the finest genre-sf satirists, and a great deal of his work depends on the introduction of a similar innocent viewpoint.</p> <p>Satire is not only a matter of imaginary societies and shifts in perspective; it has a great deal to do with narrative tone, which cannot generally afford to be too hectoring or sarcastic, or the reader simply feels bludgeoned. An air of mild surprise is often considered appropriate, though commonly the narrator's voice is ironic or sardonic, a good example of the latter being found in a collection which contains several satirical sf fables, <i>Sardonic Tales</i> (coll trans <b>1927</b>), assembled from <i>Contes Cruels</i> (coll <b>1883</b>) by <a href="/entry/villiers_de_lisle-adam">Villiers de L'Isle-Adam</a>, after whose collection this whole mode of writing is often known as "contes cruels" or "cruel tales". Further examples of this chilling subgenre can be found in the work of John <a href="/entry/collier_john">Collier</a>, Roald <a href="/entry/dahl_roald">Dahl</a> and sometimes Howard <a href="/entry/fast_howard">Fast</a>. In genre sf it characterizes the excellent work of John T <a href="/entry/sladek_john_t">Sladek</a>, who shifts skilfully between the mock-innocent and the ironic in his stories, nearly all of which are satire.</p> <p>The standard of satire within genre sf was not very high before the 1950s, though numerous pulp writers from Stanton A <a href="/entry/coblentz_stanton_a">Coblentz</a> to L Sprague <a href="/entry/de_camp_l_sprague">de Camp</a> wrote occasionally in this vein. One of the earliest sf writers to excel here was, especially in his short stories, Henry <a href="/entry/kuttner_henry">Kuttner</a> (whose work, even when signed Kuttner, was often written collaboratively with C L <a href="/entry/moore_c_l">Moore</a>). Short, satirical sf stories found a natural home in the early 1950s when the magazine <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy Science Fiction</a> opened up a new market. The best of the <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a> satirists were probably Damon <a href="/entry/knight_damon">Knight</a>, C M <a href="/entry/kornbluth_c_m">Kornbluth</a>, Frederik <a href="/entry/pohl_frederik">Pohl</a>, Sheckley and William <a href="/entry/tenn_william">Tenn</a>. As satirical collaborators, Pohl and Kornbluth specialized in dystopian stories which extrapolated displeasing aspects of present-day life into the future: the world of <a href="/entry/advertising">Advertising</a> was pilloried in both <i>The Space Merchants</i> (July-August 1952 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a> as "Gravy Planet"; rev and cut <b>1953</b>) and Pohl's much later solo effort, <i>The Merchants' War</i> (<b>1984</b>), and of organized sport in <i>Gladiator-at-Law</i> (June-August 1954 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>; <b>1955</b>; rev <b>1986</b>). It was the turn of insurance companies in <i>Preferred Risk</i> (June-September 1955 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>; <b>1955</b>) by Pohl and Lester <a href="/entry/del_rey_lester">del Rey</a> writing together as Edson <a href="/entry/mccann_edson">McCann</a>. Another sharp anti-advertising book is <i>The Big Ball of Wax</i> (<b>1954</b>) by Shepherd <a href="/entry/mead_shepherd">Mead</a>; and much of the amusing but occasionally heavy-handed satire of Ron <a href="/entry/goulart_ron">Goulart</a> is directed against the ad-man's mentality, and the <a href="/entry/media_landscape">Media Landscape</a> generally. Lois McMaster <a href="/entry/bujold_lois_mcmaster">Bujold</a>'s take on this trope of the world being run by a particular metastasized industry is the only mutedly satirical <i>Cryoburn</i> (<b>2010</b>), featuring shenanigans on a planet dominated by competing <a href="/entry/cryonics">Cryonics</a> corporations.</p> <p>In the 1960s and 1970s the magazine <a href="/entry/new_worlds">New Worlds</a> published many writers whose satirical skills tended more towards a rather dry irony than to overt anger or even jovial sarcasm. Notable among these were Brian W <a href="/entry/aldiss_brian_w">Aldiss</a>, Thomas M <a href="/entry/disch_thomas_m">Disch</a> and the editor himself, Michael <a href="/entry/moorcock_michael">Moorcock</a>, whose most directly satirical sequence is <b>Dancers at the End of Time</b>, beginning with <i>An Alien Heat</i> (<b>1972</b>). US satire, too, became less broad than before. The amusing but obvious satire of Fritz <a href="/entry/leiber_fritz">Leiber</a>'s <i>The Silver Eggheads</i> (January 1959 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>; exp <b>1962</b>) and <i>A Specter Is Haunting Texas</i> (July-September 1968 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>; <b>1969</b>) gave ground to the work of writers like Barry N <a href="/entry/malzberg_barry_n">Malzberg</a> and James <a href="/entry/tiptree_james_jr">Tiptree</a> Jr, who (in completely different ways) also preferred a lower-key irony (through which in both cases a ferocious bitterness is visible) and in whose works the satirical was only one of several elements. Pure satires were becoming comparatively rare in sf by the 1970s, although Peter <a href="/entry/dickinson_peter">Dickinson</a>'s <i>The Green Gene</i> (<b>1973</b>) and Richard <a href="/entry/cowper_richard">Cowper</a>'s <i>Clone</i> (<b>1972</b>) are examples; the latter is another story in the <i>Candide</i> pattern. Some important satirical work issued from the Communist bloc, notably that of Stanisław <a href="/entry/lem_stanislaw">Lem</a> in, especially, <i>Cyberiada</i> (coll <b>1965</b>; trans as <i>The Cyberiad</i> <b>1974</b>) and "Kongres Futurologiczny" (<b>1971</b>; trans as <i>The Futurological Congress</i> <b>1974</b>), where the savagery of the wit is Swift-like.</p> <p>The sf <a href="/entry/cinema">Cinema</a> has flirted with satire quite often. The best-known examples are probably <a href="/entry/planet_of_the_apes">Planet of the Apes</a> (<i>1968</i>), <a href="/entry/sleeper">Sleeper</a> (<i>1973</i>) and <a href="/entry/dr_strangelove">Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb</a> (<i>1963</i>); others are <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/presidents_analyst_the">President's Analyst</a> (<i>1967</i>), <a href="/entry/westworld">Westworld</a> (<i>1973</i>), <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/stuff_the">Stuff</a> (<i>1985</i>), <a href="/entry/terrorvision">Terrorvision</a> (<i>1986</i>), <a href="/entry/earth_girls_are_easy">Earth Girls Are Easy</a> (<i>1988</i>) and <a href="/entry/meet_the_applegates">Meet the Applegates</a> (<i>1990</i>). <a href="/entry/dawn_of_the_dead">Dawn of the Dead</a> (<i>1977</i>; vt <i>Zombie</i>) is unusual in marrying satire to <a href="/entry/horror_in_sf">Horror</a>, especially in its central image of <a href="/entry/zombies">Zombies</a> shambling around a shopping mall. <a href="/entry/strange_invaders">Strange Invaders</a> (<i>1983</i>) manages to combine an exciting alien-invasion story with considerable satire on the USA of the 1950s (a cultural era into whose behaviour patterns the aliens have been frozen) and of the 1980s (when they attempt to act).</p> <p>In general satire during the 1970s-1980s was perhaps less visible in genre sf than in borderline-sf <a href="/entry/fabulation">Fabulations</a> (including some by John Calvin <a href="/entry/batchelor_john_calvin">Batchelor</a>, William <a href="/entry/burroughs_william_s">Burroughs</a>, Angela <a href="/entry/carter_angela">Carter</a>, Robert <a href="/entry/coover_robert">Coover</a>, Carol <a href="/entry/emshwiller_carol">Emshwiller</a>, Alasdair <a href="/entry/gray_alasdair">Gray</a>, Jerzy <a href="/entry/kosinski_jerzy">Kosinski</a>, Thomas <a href="/entry/pynchon_thomas">Pynchon</a> and Josephine <a href="/entry/saxton_josephine">Saxton</a> – the list could be considerably extended). While genre sf continues to take the form of pure satire comparatively rarely, satirical elements are common in seemingly nonsatirical genre novels, especially perhaps in the work of writers for whom irony is an important part of their vision, such as Iain <a href="/entry/banks_iain_m">Banks</a>, Terry <a href="/entry/bisson_terry">Bisson</a>, George Alec <a href="/entry/effinger_george_alec">Effinger</a>, M John <a href="/entry/harrison_m_john">Harrison</a>, John <a href="/entry/kessel_john">Kessel</a>, James <a href="/entry/morrow_james">Morrow</a>, Rudy <a href="/entry/rucker_rudy">Rucker</a> and Howard <a href="/entry/waldrop_howard">Waldrop</a>. Not that irony and satire can be read as isomorphic: Gene <a href="/entry/wolfe_gene">Wolfe</a> and John <a href="/entry/crowley_john">Crowley</a>, for example, are ironists almost always, satirists almost never. [PN/DRL]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/comic_inferno">Comic Inferno</a>; <a href="/entry/humour">Humour</a>; <a href="/entry/parody">Parody</a>; <a href="/entry/sociology">Sociology</a>; <a href="/entry/taboos">Taboos</a>.</p> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/satire' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; float: left;'> </ul> <p align=center style="float:right; padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;">ISSN 3049-7612<br /> <a href="/facts.php?id=logo"> <img src="/images/VitMan.gif" width=150 height=150 title="Click for larger version of this SFE logo"></a><br /> <b><a href="/donate.php"><img src="/images/Paypal-Donate.gif" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="26" BORDER="0" /></a><br /><a href="/">Home/Welcome page</a></b></p><div style="margin-bottom:10px;"></div></div> </aside><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2><i>SFE</i> Special Features<span></span></h2><p style="margin-top: 10px;"><input type="button" value="What’s New" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/whatsnew.php'">  Latest entries; 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