Vices of Human Nature
The first five minutes before exercising are crucial as they are used to stretch and warm up. It is pure folly to start running without warming up, improvement will never be made, yet it is a commonality in many people’s lives. In order to make improvement in life, common and unnecessary vices, such as not warming up, must be removed. Among satirists, it is a common goal to change society from its flaws. Cortney Keim, Jessica Mitford, and George Carlin satirize common paths of vice hoping to elicit enough pathos to motivate people to examine their current processes and to redirect energy and attention to new consideration of old ways. Keim writes
“Making the Bed” to show how making her bed in the morning is a good way to organize her life, and she teaches her audience how to do so. Jessica Mitford, in her essay “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain,” exposes the process of embalming and implies her opinion as to its lack of necessity. Carlin comments on the social need for “stuff” using an extended metaphor about taking a vacation in his speech “Stuff.” All three authors use satire to attack folly in the nature of man and to instigate a correction of habit. Pathos is also used by all of these three authors to better convince their audiences that they are being foolish and to get them to rid their lives of these human vices. This incited change attempts to grow and mature society into one free of vice. These authors convince their audiences to improve human society by first improving themselves. The use of satire brings attention to the audience’s foibles and seeks to provoke change in its habits. Keim subtly exposes that if people do not take time to straighten out their beds, they will never be able to straighten out their lives. People are too often victims of sloth and end up caught in the flow of society: schedules, dates, plans, deadlines, events. If only they made their beds, then significant change to their lives could be made. “I began to see
“Making the Bed” to show how making her bed in the morning is a good way to organize her life, and she teaches her audience how to do so. Jessica Mitford, in her essay “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain,” exposes the process of embalming and implies her opinion as to its lack of necessity. Carlin comments on the social need for “stuff” using an extended metaphor about taking a vacation in his speech “Stuff.” All three authors use satire to attack folly in the nature of man and to instigate a correction of habit. Pathos is also used by all of these three authors to better convince their audiences that they are being foolish and to get them to rid their lives of these human vices. This incited change attempts to grow and mature society into one free of vice. These authors convince their audiences to improve human society by first improving themselves. The use of satire brings attention to the audience’s foibles and seeks to provoke change in its habits. Keim subtly exposes that if people do not take time to straighten out their beds, they will never be able to straighten out their lives. People are too often victims of sloth and end up caught in the flow of society: schedules, dates, plans, deadlines, events. If only they made their beds, then significant change to their lives could be made. “I began to see
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