How has satire been utilised within 2 of your texts?(Making close reference to two others). Texts are in the body of the essay, as they wouldn't fit in the title.

Essay by sarchiA-, July 2004

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Texts - Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift), Utopia (Sir Thomas Moore), The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde), Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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Gulliver's Travels is a satire, aimed at the 18th century society that Jonathan Swift lived in - that is, the English way of life and customs. It may be compared to Utopia, the Importance of Being Earnest and Monty Python and the Holy Grail in many ways; all are satires of the time in which the authors/creators lived in, parodying the social and moral values of the time. However, there are many differences between Gulliver's Travels/Utopia and The Importance of Being Earnest/Monty Python and the Holy Grail - the former two parody society on a larger scale, calling for social and moral reform in a Horatian style, whereas the latter two use a Juvenalian humour to comment on our social and moral behaviour, as well as our misconceptions of history.

Both The Importance of Being Earnest and The Holy Grail, like Gulliver's Travels and Utopia, satirise society and how we live it; parodying the antics and idiocy of the Victorian era's upper class, and The Holy Grail the misconceptions relating to our own history. They do not call for social reform as stridently as does Gulliver's Travels and Utopia; instead, they make a comment on our social beliefs and values.

The first society that Gulliver visits, the Lilliputians, are as small morally as they are physically. They are petty and have arguments over aspects of life such as upon which end to break an egg: "[the king] seemed to think nothing ... of destroying the Big-Endian exiles, and compelling that people to break the smaller end of their eggs." Another example is that of a court official by the name of Filmnap who maintains his...