May I Interest You in a Bowl of Satire?

This week’s writer’s group meeting has had me thinking about satire the past few days. What exactly is satire and how is it most effective?

First, I looked up the word in my copy of Webster’s Dictionary in my office. The definition is: the use of ridicule, sarcasm and irony to attack vices and follies.

The more interesting part of the entry in the dictionary was the word’s origin. It comes from the Latin word satira, which means a dish of fruits.

A dish of fruits. Wow. The mind reels.

Imagine you are presented with a person, in the guise of a decent person, who suddenly spouts what, to you, is an odious belief or prejudice, a belief that is so full of logical fallacies and contradictions that we will imagine this belief as an oozing overripe plum, since there happens to be an oozing overripe plum conveniently resting in a dish near you.

The gleam of possibility enters your eye, the vision of these odious and vulnerable ideas, again in the guise of an oozing plum, rebounding on their originator is a delicious one. As Terry Pratchett might say: rotten belief, meet your maker.

Voila.

Sometimes all it takes is a good image to spark the imagination. Is it any coincidence that image is in both words?

Amy