As I read the play and tried to understand the plot, finding the satire in the things the characters were saying got more and more difficult. I did not understand what the satire was. So to begin, I looked up what the word satire meant and how it’s used in most cases to understand more closely. Satire is defined as “a literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack.” The definition made me understand what the meaning of satire was a little more but it didn’t make me detect any of the most obvious satire in the book. The only few things that I could find that appeared to be remotely satirical was the way the gods treated the people as they went through the people to find out who was the best person. One particular part was when Wong says, “You’ll be staying with a single girl—the finest human being in Setzuan!” and the third god says, “That’s nice.” I thought with this line Wong was ridiculing the fact that the gods are trying to find the finest human being. The rest of the book seemed normal conversation to me. I didn’t detect any satire in the rest of the things people said. Overall the book seemed like a normal story to me. I never detected any satire and I think I probably just don’t fully understand what satire is.
"Satire." The Nellen Family Jewels. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.
Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. United States: S.n.], 1957. Print.
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