Christopher Morley’s piece, On Laziness, presents a comical defence of philosophical lethargy with a surplus of satire though paradoxes, and formal, polysyllabic language. But the most obvious example of essay’s purposeful absurdity comes not from the diction or the arguments, but from the essay’s existence in the first place. From the very first sentence, Morley comments on how he was “too indolent...to write an essay on Laziness.” This is followed by almost nine-hundred words “in favour of a greater appreciation of Indolence”, driving home the satirical and comedic nature of the piece to the reader from the very beginning through this obvious paradox. It signals to the reader to not take the essay as a literal argument, but as a mockery of such a point of view. …show more content…
For instance, Morley states clearly that society has “no respect for those who were born lazy.” Yet later in the essay, he goes on to write that “People respect laziness.” This is not an error on the author’s part; to the contrary, this contradiction is purposefully designed to show the error of such a line of reasoning for comical effect. The text’s attempt to celebrate the acceptance of laziness while it simultaneously laments society’s unfairness to the lazy is an example of a lazy argument in and of itself. The argument proves itself wrong, and thus, the audience is