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Satire and the Modern American Novel: A Critique of Writers' Embrace of Hopelessness
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10447 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1993 |
4,017 Words |
| Author
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Walter Poznar
Walter Poznar is professor of humanities at Saint Leo College,
Florida. He has published numerous articles on higher
education and literature. |
Most definitions of satire emphasize its corrective or restorative power. A Handbook to Literature by Thrall and Hibbard calls it "a literary manner which blends a critical attitude with HUMOR and WIT to the end that human institutions or humanity may be improved."
The great works of satire, like Gulliver's Travels, expose greed, vanity, hypocrisy, and stupidity in order to bring us back to sanity. But when we turn to the American novel in this century, it is obvious that in certain respects real satire is nonexistent. Whatever strengths the American novel has, it has failed to produce in our own time a single sustained work of satire comparable to the acknowledged masterpieces.
If we examine some of the assumptions usually made about satire, we can more accurately identify the conditions and attitudes within which the American novelist works and some of the reasons why we have not produce a major work in this genre.
The Satirist's Moral Values
First, the accomplished satirist normally has the advantage of set of ethical norms according to which he judges mankind. Aristophanes, watching Athens crumbling under the devastation of war and injustice, called for a return to traditional values, convinced that some of the radial ideas he detested could only lead to disaster. In The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope dissects the sterile egoism of an effete society by tacit reference to saner standards and truly civilized behavior. As one critic has noted, "In the thought of the eighteenth century, pride remained the first of sins. By making it "sacred" Belinda, and the whole beau monde which she represents, is guilty of a serious moral fault. Pope's moral judgment is implicit throughout."
But where in American society is a potential satirist to find those values from which to challenge society? If there is one obvious characteristic of the typical protagonist in American novels, it is ethical confusion. Clyde Griffiths in An American Tragedy has no ethical standards, only his own needs and desires. Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, Eugene Gant, Babbitt, and a host of others simply do not know what they believe in. The typical protagonist, whether male or female, is like a child lost in the wilderness with no idea what path leads out of the forest. This ethical and intellectual immaturity is a confession of spiritual bankruptcy, the kind of emotional haze through which so many of Sherwood Anderson's characters drift. Theodore Dreiser is a classic example of a writer wandering in search of a faith,
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