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Satire In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

647 Words3 Pages

Satire is a genre of literature, often used as a social commentary, and sometimes is in performing arts and graphic skits. Satire uses vices, follies, abuses, shortcomings and irony to ridicule bad habits in society. People often use satire to pick at a topic or bad problem to make you think and then take action. After reading satire, it should make you think about the given issue and give you a certain view on something, usually towards the author's view. Satire should leave an emotional effect on you over the topic, or issue, that makes you maybe want to change something to fix said issue. When uneducated about satire, maybe people can get offended or insulted by it, which makes satire a tricky literary element to establish. Overall, satire …show more content…

When the creature in Frankenstein was created, (s)he was so ugly and scary that no one could even look at them without screaming and running away. Into the novel, the creature makes contact with one person, that ended up being delightful. When the creature starts listening to a family they make contact with one of the members, and old blind man named De Lacey. The blind man is the only character in Frankenstein who the creature talks to that doesn’t run away screaming. The Blind man valued mind over looks, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. “‘I am blind and I cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in your words which persuades me that you are sincere…”At that instant the cottage door was opened and Felix, Safie, and Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me?’ (Shelley 170).The hidden satire behind this, is the ridicule of lookism. Lookism is construction of a standard for beauty and attractiveness, and judgments made about people on the basis of how well or poorly they meet the standard, as defined by google.com. In the novel, every character couldn’t bare the sight of the creature, judging them based on looks rather than their brilliant personality. In this indirect satire, Mary Shelley made known of the common issue, of then and now,

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