Essays on Satirical

Video in Opera Stage

Introduction Advances in technology and the corresponding creation of digital technologies have significantly impacted the performing arts (Poole & Ho, 2011). Opera has not escaped the technological advancements and as such, new forms of opera have emerged in both digital and virtual formats (Symonds & Karantonis, 2013). Salter (2010) explains that since the 1990s, the scenography of opera has emerged with technological advancements transforming stages into video and monitor accompaniments. The obvious payoff is an enhanced experiential, virtual reality of the opera’s stage. The new technologies blur the lines between the opera’s stage and the motion picture common in ...

Commedia dell’arte is literally translated as a comedy of crafts, meaning the crafts of improvisation. According to David L. Hurst, “The word arte implied the incorporation of the dramatic arts; it brought together those who were authorized to perform for the counts, dukes, etc” (Nikole). The comedy is thus performed by the professionals, meaning, actors who are capable enough to improvise or perform at least self-impromptu. The quality of the play would thus by no means suffer because of its off-hand nature. Developed in Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries and flourishing since them, it may confidently ...

In Conrad’s book, ‘Heart of Darkness’ Marlow can be viewed as a protagonist as he appears in various scenes. He is a character, who cannot be defined easily. For instance, he foresees records of great originality when echoing his Victorian forerunners. Marlow outstands as a strong hero, self-determined and creative thinker, an able and candid man. The writer echoes the words about Marlow by saying that, “Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him, the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale. It ...

Surprise ending

A modest proposal is a widely read essay by Jonathan Swift that was written with an aim of providing the solution to the aggravating hunger problem in Ireland. From the beginning of the proposal, Swift adopts a satirical approach which ensures into a surprise ending. The ending comes as a surprise to me because, at the start of the essay, Swift takes the persona of a concerned economist proposing that to alleviate the poverty and overpopulation better in Ireland, the children of the poor should be sold as food to the wealthy. This, he argues, will significantly increase the ...

1. Clearly state in your own words the “surprise ending” in the reading you selected. Clearly identify the point in the reading when you realized that there were elements in the reading that surprised you. Not all of the surprises come at the end. The “surprise ending” of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” became evident when the work made it apparent that the argument it was making was satire. This became obvious due to the increasingly radical views that were being proposed within the text. As the author continued to monetize and commoditize human life and began discussing trading ...

It is a well-known fact that the linguistic heritage of J. Swift is characterized by vivid satirical orientation. In literary and aesthetic categorization, satire is considered to be an integral part of the more general comic category which is understood as a special form of relations to the reality. In this case, satire is not only a kind of comic, but also the specific means of artistic reproduction of reality revealing it as something distorted, incoherent, internally untenable through the comic, ridiculed, accusatory images. Satire creates an image of high conditionality, and is achieved by means of exaggeration, sharpening, ...

Alexander Pope's creativity is an important stage in the development of the English poetry in the age of the Enlightenment. Although the legacy of Alexander Pope has long been divided into the early "ad-satirical" period, yet the poet's main contribution to the history of literature is associated with his late ethical-philosophical and satirical works (Noggle 145). The compromise character of A. Pope's aesthetics makes it easier to "compound the neoclassical and rocaille artistic aspirations" and makes the genre of comic mock-heroic more natural (Noggle 146). His poem "The Rape of the Lock" is the result of a masterful poetic ...

Deviant behavior

Deviant behavior means that a person behaves himself contrary to modern social moral and legal norms. It entails the isolation, treatment or punishment of a person who violated the rules. The activity of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is the best example of deviant behavior because it always shocks people and provides pictures that are contrary to commonly accepted rules and behaviors. Some people even try to deal with this problem and it was attacked in last January, 12 people including eight staff were killed. This magazine has marked the one-year anniversary since terrorists attacked its Paris. It depicted God ...

Essay Front Attachment

Type of Performance: Comedy Musical/Satirical Plat Site of Performance: West Valley College Theatre (WVC) Time and Length of Performance: 1 hour Proof: (Weatvalley.edu) The event attended was the play ‘Urinetown’ held at West Valley College theater hall. The play was satirical based presenting themes of legal system incompetence and capitalism in the world. The key messages delivered focused on exposing the ridiculous state of government affairs and the authorities’ incompetence. The imagery was used in the visual presentation as well as characters dialogue and audio visualization descriptions. The setting was a town which had been struck by a drought ...

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in his novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” talks about several themes in relation to war. He uses meta-fiction and writing about writing as a major style in which to relay his message. The memories of the war keep getting off his mind. He wants to write the story but in other times he feels that it is not necessary. Vonnegut applies meta-fiction in his writing in order to bring the various effects of war: psychological and physical. Through the use of various characters in his work, Vonnegut is able to depict clearly the situation during the war. It is ...

Classical English literature studies

Comedy – a professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh. Late Middle English (as a genre of drama, also denoting a narrative poem with a happy ending, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy): from Old French comedie, via Latin from Greek kōmōidia, from kōmōidos 'comic poet', from kōmos 'revel' + aoidos 'singer'. ("Comedy: Definition Of Comedy in Oxford Dictionary (American English)"). Aristotle defines comedy as an imitation of men, who is worse than the average, but not in their perversities, but in hilarious sense. Comedy, as a genre ...

The Fool has played an important role throughout much of the course of literature and the arts. Whether it is Falstaff serving as a foil for the more serious side of the young prince Henry, who has his own partying to do before he has to take on the more serious role of governing England (Shakespeare), or whether it is Al Czervik, the outrageous jester who somehow has found his way onto the golf course of Bushwood Country Club in the film Caddyshack, the Fool points out many of the elements of human nature that otherwise might remain safely ...

Ever since the artists and publishers of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris were assassinated by the Islamic Extremists, France has been on a maximum security threat level. Several arrests have been made, but the vicious circle continues. When Charlie Hebdo exposed its first cover after the attack that left several of its staff members dead, another debate has sparked as to how far the boundaries can be pushed when it comes to freedom of expression in images. It is essential to know as to who draws those boundaries and how those boundaries get drawn (Charlie Hebdo attack ...

The Handmaid’s Tale is a classic example of satire as the author employs this approach to ridicule various issues that she raises concerns about in his society. Atwood utilizes satire to highlight palpably comedic sets up of reality. The idea also includes, the utilization of exaggeration and irony to bring out an argument— the category in which the Atwood’s story fall. In particular, satire poses exaggerated situations, irony, and humor to criticize the society absurdity or values especially in respect to the contemporary politics and other sensitive issues. Through Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood has provided a creative ...

Throughout time, the definition of heroism has undergone a very great change. Where once heroes were seen as brave and fearless warriors who plunged into the danger of battle with swords and spears, now heroes are defined in many different ways and in much broader terms. However, even with the passage of time and societal advances, the basic underlying traits of a hero remain essentially the same. Heroes are those who have the courage to face dangerous situations and risk of harm; put the needs and wants of others above their own; and either defend or attack in order ...

A Modest Proposal is a satirical work by Jonathan Swift aimed at skewering English reactions to the then-contemporary issues of poverty and famine in Ireland. It revolves around a detailed argument that the problems of poverty, famine, overpopulation and many other social ills could be solved by selling one year old Irish children to be cooked and eaten dressed “hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs” at English dinner tables (Swift, 1729, p.9). It was written in the early 18th century when Ireland was effectively an English colony and had been ruled as such for centuries. Colonialism ...

In the world over the years, various ages have come and gone. Some ages don’t go but stay with us for along time. Those that go become history, but the ages that persist form part of our daily life. In the history of our world, various ages have come and others have come and gone. We have read in the history books about the ice age, the Iron Age when mankind used iron in making his tools and so on. Over along time now, we have been characterized by changes in technology and fast movement of information. This ...

In the film, V for Vendetta, the audience are presented with a dystopian society under totalitarian rule by the fascist political party, Norsefire and its leader, Adam Sutler: dictator of the United Kingdom. V, a masked vigilante, is presented as being both, terrorist and hero: a concept which, in a post-9/11 world, is a difficult one to comprehend. Nonetheless, the audience are quickly persuaded to be on-side with this anti-hero as he fights for the personal rights of the British people. Alan Moore’s hugely successful graphic novel and its film counterpart are a satirical view on the state of privacy and personal rights freedom ...