Essay --

Satire is a balanced combination of sarcasm, irony, humor, and rhetorical devices that all focus on mocking or ridiculing certain works. In â€Å"The War Prayer† by Mark Twain and â€Å"The Battle of the Ants† by Henry David Thoreau, both short works satire the glorification of war. In comparison, â€Å"The War Prayer† revolves around jingoism by displaying traces of shock, hyperbole and a juxtaposing tone; whereas â€Å"The Battle of the Ants† exhibits a historical background through sarcasm, verisimilitude, and a mock-heroic tone. â€Å"The War Prayer† by Mark Twain satirizes through jingoism, one satiric device is shown through shock: ‘I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!’ (Twain 5. 53); as citizens listen in on a church service in a country that is going to war the soldiers are being granted triumph and safety by God’s messenger however a stranger interrupts and claims he is God’s messenger, Twain used outrageous details to startle and grab the reader’s attention showing a stranger demanding he is the messenger when instead someone else is, thus plotting a twist in the passage. Another satiric device that was used in Twain’s passage is hyperbole: â€Å"†¦in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Twain 5. 2); the exaggeration was given its purpose to give the readers the image of the â€Å"†¦time of great and exalting excitement† (Twain. 5. 1) that was happening in the unnamed town that was in the beginning of bloodshed. One more satirical device that was used in the â€Å"The War Prayer† is its juxtaposing tone; Twain contrasts the praising and celebratory tone to the bitter tone at the end of the passage. At the beginning of the passage the tone is described as giddy and enthralling: â€Å"The country was up in arms, the war was on, in ... ...nts] battle-cry was ‘Conquer or die.’†(Thoreau 3. 22). Thoreau uses level and elevated diction to persuade the reader that this crusade is not meaningless but glorifies the actual fierceness of warriors in combat, resembling actual wars. In conclusion, the satirical pieces discussed share common satirical techniques and differ in them as well. â€Å"The War Prayer† juggled around jingoism by using shock, hyperbole, and juxtaposing tone to give the passage multiple turnouts, resulting in a bathetic ending. â€Å"The Battle of the Ants† displayed its work through historical context using the satirical elements of sarcasm, verisimilitude, and a mock-heroic tone, thus resulting Thoreau’s pompous writing to mocking historians who glorify war with detailed notes. Both accomplish the glorification of war by portraying hyper-patriotism and elevated diction in unique ways as well.