Satire and Mimesis -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1], 2 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 13:27:08 03/17/08 Mon
Author: Kiernan
Subject: Satire and Mimesis

As I was doing some research on Jane Austen, I began thinking about the role of satire in revealing mimesis. Within a satirical work, characters' motives are often revealed as imitative, instead of original, and their attempts at appearing original become sadly comedic. We desire to see these characters as exaggerated, as unreal. Yet their lack of originality, their imitative character, is very true to life - we are these characters.

For example, in speaking of Austen's use of caricature, D.W. Harding says, "Caricature served Jane Austen's purpose perfectly. Under her treatment one can never say where caricature leaves off and the claim to serious portraiture begins" (from the Norton Critical Edition of Pride and Prejudice). Harding uses the example of Mr. Collins to demonstrate his point. Austen's portrayal of Mr. Collins is very sharp; he is portrayed as a poor imitator of the false prestige of his patron, Lady Catherine. We laugh at Mr. Collins; yet Austen's satire proves a far deeper point about the imitative nature of man. Though we desire to see Mr. Collins as an exaggerated figure, he actually seems, after some thought, to be a character drawn from life itself. We are actually all like Mr. Collins.

Thus, satire seems to provide the writer with a way in which to point to the imitative character of man. Satire often emphasizes the ridiculous nature of this mimesis, and allows for readers to do the very misreading which the text itself is pointing to. In seeing Mr Collins as unreal, we prove our own blindness to his similarity to us.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]