Satire Essay

Defining a Satire Essay

A satire essay is a writing piece that mocks a particular topic using satire. If your professor assigned this paper, you need to criticize the given subject, pointing its flaws, irrelevance, or absurdity.

But what makes an essay satirical? For this, you need to know what satire is in the first place. Basically, it’s a combination of expressive means used to expose the subject humorously, often to show its flaws. Writers achieve satire using the following literary techniques:

Irony

Irony is a literary device that reveals the difference between our expectations about a subject and its true nature. Let us take an example of irony:

“Peter was excited about the Islamic world and dreamt about visiting some Western Asian countries. His dream came true: he was sent to Syria under his military contract!” As you see, there is a striking difference between expectations and reality: technically, Peter visited the Arab country. But he fought on the battlefield there instead of sipping cocktails at the beach.

Sarcasm

Many people confuse irony and sarcasm. It’s because sarcasm is a variation of irony. It also underlines the difference between expectations and reality. However, it’s pointed toward a particular person rather than a situation. When you say something sarcastically, you say the opposite of what you think.

For example, Bob is a heavy-handed guy who hooked TV monitors in a supermarket: they fell like dominos. A sarcastic comment would sound like this: “Hey Bob! Can you give me some dexterity advice?”

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a literary device that exaggerates things. For example: “It took me eternity to craft an essay on satire!” Another example: My crush has been ignoring me for millions of years!”

You can combine hyperbole with mockery as well. This way, you will turn something insignificant into apocalyptic to make the whole situation ridiculous. Check out this example:

– On that day, Tom’s life changed forever. He will never be the same person again. This day has burned his personality into ashes. He realized that Santa is no person but an imaginary character.

Overall, a satire essay is a writing piece that uses irony, hyperbole, and sarcasm to reveal  subjects’ flaws.

Top Satire Essay Writing Tips

Check the following tips to write a brilliant satire essay with ease:

Choose Literary Devices Wisely

As you can see, specific literary devices make an essay satirical. Therefore, it implies that you will keep to the publicist, humorous style.

Yet, sometimes your satire essay can or must sound serious, depending on your topic. If you criticize the horror of war, you may avoid applying too much humor. It’s because war is the apex of terror, violence, and inhumanity.

So, a satirical essay aims not to make fun of something but to criticize an issue and tell everyone that something “normal” is terribly wrong.

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos: The Persuasive Triangle

A satirical essay resembles a persuasive paper in its nature. Indeed, you need to provide arguments to show your reader that something, let it be mortgage service, is destructive. For this, you can use the following persuasive techniques:

Ethos

Ethos is an appeal to credibility. To persuade someone, you need to show that authorities (scientists, famous people, literature, etc.) support your arguments. Thus, your statements will sound more credible: they are backed up with reliable opinions/facts.

Logos

Logos is an appeal to logic. You will use a chain of logical arguments to persuade your reader. For this, you can use:

• Deductive reasoning. In short, the logical development transits from a general statement to a specific conclusion. For example, predators eat other animals → lions eat zebras → lions are predators.
• Inductive reasoning. It is the opposite of deductive reasoning (specific statement → general conclusion). Lions are predators. Zebras are not. If we place lions and zebras in the same cage, lions will eat zebras.

Pathos

Pathos is an appeal to emotion. It means you need to persuade your readers by playing with their empathy. How to appeal to emotion, then? As for mortgage services, you can tell a short story that exemplifies how bad loans are.

For example, there was one struggling Bob. He needed to build a family, but he was an average clerk who couldn’t afford a house. Bob borrowed money and bought a house. Then, he got fired and ran out of money. He was unable to pay the debts, and the bank confiscated his house. His wife left him. Bob, left alone homeless with overwhelming debts, committed suicide. It’s a sad story, and, technically, everyone can become that Bob. You can combine it with ethos, referring to statistics about debt-driven suicides.

Wrapping Persuasive Techniques into Satire

To write a satire essay, you should wrap your arguments (ethos, pathos, and logos) into irony, sarcasm, and hyperbole. Thus, you can add irony for more emphasis while appealing to your reader’s emotions. For example: “home loans are so cost-effective that you need to pay twice as much as you originally borrowed!”

Follow Satire Essay Outline

If you ask yourself, “how to outline my satirical essay?” you can pick a standard 5-paragraph structure and modify it according to your purposes:

• Introduction
• Body paragraph 1: Ethos argument
• Body paragraph 2: Logic argument
• Body paragraph 3: Pathos argument
• Conclusion

The crucial part in writing an essay, including a satirical one, is to follow a clear and logical structure. So check how to write each part of a satirical essay below:

Satire Essay Introduction

An essay introduction begins your paper and attracts your readers’ attention. It should also explain how crucial your topic is by including the background information. Consequently, your essay introduction must contain the following elements:

• A striking, eye-opening fact that aims to stick your reader’s attention to your topic
• Context, which emphasizes your subject’s significance
• A thesis statement, which is the main discussion point within your essay
• A transition sentence that connects your essay introduction to its body or the first body paragraph

Satire Essay Body

Your essay body may contain as many paragraphs as you need to cover your topic to the fullest. So, you may have more than five paragraphs. It’s simple, but the real catch lies beneath the paragraph’s structure: it should reflect your essay outline (introduction, body, and conclusion). For this, you should build each essay paragraph in this way:

• A topic sentence, which is a mini introduction that leads to your argument
• The main argument
• A little summary that establishes a link to the next paragraph

You may have heard about the MEAL approach to writing body paragraphs. It stands for the main idea, evidence, analysis, and lead-out. In practice, the MEAL approach is similar to what we have just mentioned above:

• The main idea means a topic sentence
• Evidence and analysis refer to the main argument. Given that, the evidence is the argument itself, while analysis adds an extra explanation
• Lead-out is a combination of summary and transition

Remember to incorporate persuasive techniques into your essay body. For instance, you can dedicate some paragraphs to ethos, pathos, and logos.

Satire Essay Conclusion

Satire essay conclusion also consists of several parts, which are:

• A rephrased thesis statement. Remember the main essay point in your essay introduction? You should rewrite one, introducing new meanings. You have to make your reader reconsider your thesis statement assuming all the facts, arguments, and statistics discussed in your essay
• A summary of essay arguments, which is the central part of your conclusion. You should connect your supporting evidence to the thesis statement, explaining their significance within your topic
• A closing sentence, which provides your essay with a sense of completeness

Use Writing Tools

If you wish to craft a high-end satirical essay, you may want to use several tools:

• Plagiarism checkers. This software will help you avoid plagiarism penalties and get the highest possible grade if your essay satisfies other assessment criteria
• Citation machines. APA, Chicago, or MLA 8 citation guidelines are indeed intimidating. So you can use citation machines that generate accurate references based on your citation format
• Grammar checkers. Sometimes, you may fail to spot all mistakes in your essay after spending ten hours working on it. You can use grammar checkers like Grammarly to save time on corrections. This software will detect errors and provide you with meaningful suggestions in real-time

How to Find an Appropriate Topic for Your Satire Essay?

A well-chosen satire essay topic makes up a significant portion of your writing success. In practice, choosing a satire essay topic is easy − follow these tips:

• Select provocative topics, like fake social media life versus real-life communication.
• Focus on something that drives you mad in the first place. You will write a perfect satirical essay saturated with sarcasm and black humor if you choose a topic that disturbs you personally
• Refer to time-proven themes like politics and government but cover present-day issues. For example: “What if Trump’s ideal America became real”
• Check for topics on the web. Well, there is no better way to come up with hundreds of satire essay topics than googling them online. Consequently, you can find pretty unique and, most importantly, creative themes to start with

The Top Ten Satire Essay Topics

Check the following satire essay ideas to start writing an engaging paper:

1. How can marketing help you die? Idea: Junk food and alcohol are advertised, but no one is concerned.
2. What if people’s social media comments became a reality. Idea: criticize internet bullying.
3. An ideal worker from an employer’s perspective. Idea: show that workers are pushed to hardly achievable standards and viewed as a disposable labor force.
4. What if the Internet was your doctor. Idea: criticize people who diagnose their ailments using Wikipedia.
5. Environmental pollution is awesome! Idea: show how horrible it would be to live among the hills of plastic garbage if environmental pollution continued.
6. How to save yourself from the government’s surveillance. Idea: parody conspiracy theories.
7. Aliens: how would they describe humans? Idea: show that things we usually do are weird.
8. What if our appearance reflected our character traits?  Idea: imagine how excellent/horrible it would be if we instantly discovered each other’s character traits.
9. What if everyone was able to read each other’s thoughts?
10. What if everyone told only the truth? Idea: criticize the fact that some people appreciate sincerity but prefer to lie to each other daily, calling it politeness.

More Satire Essay Topics

• Literary Group In British Poetry
• English Language And Literature
• The Importance Of Being Earnest As Farcical And Satirical Comedy
• Charles Dickens’ Satire Of Victorian Culture In Oliver Twist
• Discuss Satire In Jonathan Swift’s Novel Gulliver’s Travels
• Discuss How Satire Uses Aspects Of Other Genres
• Candide: Optimism
• Compare A Poem To A Song
• Compare And Contrast Gillivers Travels And Candide
• Oh, For A Muse Of Ice!
• Oliver Twist Analysis

Funny Satire Essay Topics

• Joseph Andrew – Satire
• Satire In Huckleberry Finn
• Voltaire’s Use Of Satire In Candide
• Huckleberry Finn And The Use Of Satire
• Satire In Huck Finn
• Nuke The Bastards! A Satire
• Satire In Huckleberry Finn
• Satire In Catch 22
• Satire Of Gulliver’s Travels
• The Satire In Voltaire’s Candide

Social Satire Essay Topics

• Deforestation Satire
• Unemployment Satire
• The Deadly Social Cloud (Satire)
• Satire In Harrison Bergeron
• Effective Satire In God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater G
• Social Commentary In A Clockwork Orange
• The Satire And Humor In Chaucer 8217S Canterbury Tale
• ‘Satire And Social Commentary In ‘A Connecticut Ya
• The Element Of Satire With Respect To Chaucer

Modern Satire Essay Topics

• Animal Satire
• Satire And The Simpsons
• Animal Farm: Animal Satire
• Why Are The Homeless Homeless – A Satire
• Satire In Don Quixote
• Animal Farm-A Political Satire
• Macbeth – Tragedy Or Satire
• A Plate Of Swift Served With A Generous Portion Of Satire
• The Last Supper – Movie Satire Analysis

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Example of Satire Essay

If you take a look at a satire essay example, you will understand this task much better. Here are some satirical samples you can rely on:

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.
• The Trial by Franz Kafka.
• The Nose by Nikolai Gogol.
• The Angel of the Odd by Edgar Allan Poe.

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A satire essay is a writing piece that criticizes a particular life situation or phenomenon mockingly, using hyperbole, sarcasm, and irony. It allows your reader to look at “normal” things from a different angle, revealing their abnormal nature. Writing a satire essay might be challenging since it requires you to show creative writing skills, do significant research, and follow a humorous tone.

Many students struggle with this academic assignment: indeed, sarcasm might not be your thing. Due to this, you can ask a professional writer to craft a brilliant satire essay for you. With WriteMyEssays.org, you can order a high-end, submission-ready satire essay at an affordable price and get the highest possible grade.

References

• What Is Satire? || Oregon State Guide To Literary Terms
• Satire And Definition
• Literary Terms
• Satire
• Satire: From Alexander Pope To Snl
• Satire Vs. Parody
• Identifying Nuances In Fake News Vs. Satire: Using Semantic And Linguistic Cues