Satire is only funny if it doesn't apply to us

    Satires are built on irony and sarcasm, but its sometimes hard to find the humor in them. Sometimes novels are just so ironic that you can't help but snicker, but for the subtle passive-agressive comment, it can all just go past our heads. 

    Take Animal Farm for example, Orwell evidently displays his stance by mocking the "equality" of the animals. Readers can easily see that. It's obvious that the pigs are sleeping on beds for the good of everyone, and that they wake up an hour later than everyone for the common good. Did you pick up on that sarcasm? I would say it's pretty easy to see that the pigs have an ulterior motive and many, many excuses for their selfishness. This is the point of satire, having so much irony that readers can see the author is mocking the situation, but that doesn't make it humorous for the entire audience. As discussed in class, once a situation goes to far, it's not funny anymore, it's just cruel. 

    All depending on someome's own perspectives and outlooks on life, a sarastic passage can become hated, fast. Animal Farm probably isn't one of those books, as all the organisms reading it are humans, but that's why it's funny. Now what if you take the same book, but replace all the characters with humans? BAM, readers feel pity for the characters and it's now strictly a social commentary. Instead of an understated and light-harded book, with the audience getting invested in the story, readers are more focused on the hardship of others. We wouldn't have gotten the iconic satire Animal Farm, we would have gotten a novel that reveals the oppression in communism that cruelly mocks the slaughter of humans. Satires can't always be funny, but by making the problem seem unreachable-by, say, making all the characters animals-readers don't feel the need to pity the characters and can instead find humor in the piece.