Comparing Satire in Canterbury Tales, Pride and Prejudice...

Use of Satire in Canterbury Tales, Pride and Prejudice and The Rape of the Lock Jane Austen and Alexander Pope had had a myriad of writing styles and techniques from which to express the desired themes of their works. Satire, however, seemed to be the effective light-hearted, yet condescending, tool that enabled them to surface the faults and follies of their moral and elite society. In Chaucers Canterbury Tales, satire is used to the full extent in revealing the glutton within a pious and sacrificing nun, the vain hunter within a poor and meditative monk, and the vulgarity within a honorable woman of society. In Pride and Prejudice and The Rape of the Lock, Austen and Pope use contrasting forms of satire to obtain the†¦show more content†¦She believes in speaking her mind, exercising her wit with books, and falling in love with a mans character and soul rather than his yearly income. Elizabeths character is essential to the satirical purpose of the novel because it clashes loudly with the vanities that society holds so dearly, and force s society to see how it blindly debases itself by believing in the importance of appearance and status rather than self-importance and individuality. Austen further mocks society through Mary, Elizabeths younger sister. Mary conspicuously tries to defy the standard rules of proper ladies in society by refusing to dance at the balls, reading books in public, and using a verbose vocabulary to create the illusion that she is a well-accomplished woman. However, these actions only make her motives of being an individual to receive praise from society more obvious, adding another element of character satire to the novel. Popes The Rape of the Lock is a mock epic that uses hyperboles to fill an otherwise absurd and unimportant situation with pompous splendor; therefore, with the additional extravagancies, the situation becomes even more trivial. For example, in Popes poem a lord cuts a lock of hair from the head of a lovely maiden. The actual occurrence of such a trivia l matter in Popes society had caused great alarm, influencing him to light-heartedly ridicule the people involved in the situation by creating a