Millions of viewers each week tune into watch Colbert and SNL and see what they will make fun of next, whether it be the latest Donald Trump tweet or the public response to the NFL protests. The market of television satire is saturated with numerous shows such like the Late Show with Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, Late Night with Bill Maher, and many others. There’s so much satire to consume, but what if I told you there’s a whole area of satire that’s exciting but not talked about and consumed by mass culture? This exciting area is called satirical fiction. There’s the classic writers like Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, but satirical fiction also exists in the modern context. Exciting people work in the modern satirical fiction and through this paper, more light will be shed on the genre by focusing on the work of the writer George Saunders, the “closest thing [the modern literary world] has to Mark Twain.” (Siegal)

Saunders started off as a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines with a B.S. in Geophysical engineering before eventually moving towards writing. Now, he has four story collections and one novel under his belt. His book, Tenth of December, was a finalist for a National Book Award. He even appeared on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he read Stephen a satire of the typical Christmas story. “Dear diary, tonight, December 8. Christmas around corner. Must admit. Slight sense of dread…” starts the story where it seems like a simple story with a quirky syntax, and then progressively becomes a satire on the capitalist nature of Christmas in today’s culture. Not only does the story serve as a satire of Christmas but also serves as a parody of Saunders’s own story “The Semplica Girls Diary.” Such sentences like “Let [dog] off leash, he shot me hostile look, took dump extremely close to porch” (118) and “Damn it. Plan will not work. Cannot get check to Discover on time. Needs time to clear. So no cheetah.” (127) mirror those of the Christmas story and this idea shows just how strong Saunders is known as a satirist, but only in the literary world, a small audience. His writing style is even getting satirized on a national vindicated program. The instances where satirical fiction overlaps with television satire is few and far between. The only interaction I could find between the two medium came from the two clips Saunders did with Colbert. This is odd since a wealth of good satirical fiction exists. Since this lack of overlapping is prevalent, in this paper, I will argue that the world of Saunders’s satirical fiction proves to be more successful than satirical television shows and should be recognized more because of his appeals to human compassion in his stories. 

Before this paper goes in depth into the work of Saunders and why it’s important, the stage must be set as to why television satire shows to be more wide reaching and more popular than satirical fiction. An average of 3.26 million tune into Colbert every night (Morgan). This large viewership even runs onto the Youtube platform. The viewership can run from 300,000 views to a million views per video. A video just recently released in the last 10 hours is currently sitting at 239,000 views. Compare this to the video where Saunders reads Colbert the bedtime story I mentioned above. This video gained 47,000 views, but after a whole year period. These number seem to suggest that the video didn’t get the same traffic because it contains a person not many people recognize. Other clips from the Colbert show that aren’t necessarily satire, like Colbert’s interview with Nicole Kidman, received more views than the Saunders video. Let’s look at video of just Saunders by himself, independent of Colbert. A video on the New Yorker Youtube channel, where Saunders talks about his work, only received 29,000 views. Users aren’t sharing Saunders videos, because of his lack of familiarity with the public. It’s also important to know that television proves to be a source of entertainment for more people. According to a study done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2013, people spent around 168 mins watching television a day compared to reading 19 minutes a day (Richter).  While this chart may not cover specific television shows and their viewership compared to specific books and their sales, it’s indicative of how culture may find satirical television more attractive than satirical fiction. This idea will hopefully change by the argument brought forward in this paper.

The argument to be put forth in this will be divided as follows. First, this paper must cover why Saunders can be recognized as a satirist by looking at essays Siegal and Neeper wrote, where they analyzed how Saunders’s writing is satire. This paper will then continue with my own analysis of Saunders's story “Escape From Spiderhead”, where the analysis will show how Saunders is successful as a satirist and more successful than television satire through his appeal to compassion. The paper will end with covering any counter arguments that may be present against the ideas I support in this paper and a conclusion. 

For writer of satirical fiction to be considered a satirist, the author must be known for thinking in a satirical mindset. The word “satire”, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, can be defined as something with “vigorous wit, irony, or sarcasm [that is used] to expose and discredit vice or folly”  In Siegel’s profile of Saunders, she brings forward this quote from Saunders on President Bush, “I don’t like demonizing of Bush. It’s too easy and won’t help us repeat all of this.” This quote brings out how Saunders is criticizing an aspect of  human nature that can be considered folly, which is tied directly into the definition of satire mentioned above. Saunders ability to look at satire, which helps show his credentials as a satirical fiction writer can also be found in an interview he did with Michael Sacks, reprinted in The New Yorker. After conversing about how Saunders grew up, they turn towards an analysis of satire. Sacks mentions how he once said satire was a way of an author admitting their love for the culture they're making fun of, Saunders responds by digging into what satire is. He states, “Satire is… a bait and switch. You decide to satirize something, so you gaze at it hard enough and long enough to be able to say something true and funny and maybe angry or critical-but you first had to gaze at it for a long time. I mean, gazing is a form of love, right?” This quote show how Saunders look at satire in this well rounded and real way.  In this quote, Saunders is basically thinking out loud about statire. The excerpt from this interview, along with countless other examples found through the many videos and interviews involving Saunders, shows how he understands satire. 

Now, understanding satire is only half the battle. Of course for a satirist to be successful, they need to understand satire, but they also need to know how to utilize their knowledge so they can write meaningful satire. It’s a good thing that Saunders knows how to do this. For me to explain how Saunders is successful at satire, an analysis of his work must be brought forward. For this analysis, Saunders's story “Escape From Spiderhead” will be the subject. The story takes place in this building known as the Spiderhead. Our main character, Jeff, is the subject of tests that take place in Spiderhead. In these tests, he is given different drugs that comes through this device attached to them called a “MobiPak.” The drugs he is given directly affect his feelings and his thought processes. He is never in control of his own feelings. After a test where he is forced to make love to two women and then decide which of the two must receive extreme pain after the test is over, he decides he must escape Spiderhead. From this synopsis, the story must seem dark, but it’s rife with hilarity. Under the influence of a drug that makes him instantly fall in love with a test subject, named Heather, they instantly engage in intercourse. The act is described in a farcical way because of the nature of the drug he has been given. The drug makes Jeff extremely happy. This happiness comes through in the writing, as seen by this excerpt, “This mind-scenery phenomenon [Jeff’s complete lust for Heather] was strongest during our third (!) bout of lovemaking.” (50)  This scenes is ridiculous and the “(!)” found in the sentence is unique and adds character to the situation. This burst of character found in his writing is important to the unique nature of Saunders’s satire. 

Of course, the unique way of writing humor has to serve an interesting commentary on an aspect of society that Saunders finds ridiculous. This story is about the the over reliance of drugs in society. The ridiculing of drugs can be seen in how they’re named. One drug called Verbaluce helps Jeff speak eloquently. This names calls to mind a real-life medicine like the medicine called Mucinex, which helps with mucus. Both names have the target of what they are trying to remedy at the root of their name and both are ridiculous sounding. This weird naming of the drug is making fun of those real life medications like Mucinex. But the central commentary about drugs can be found in how the drugs make the story’s characters complicit in what they are doing. Whenever Jeff is about be drugged, he is asked “Drip on?” And he must say, “Acknowledged.” This exchange is robotic and shows how the drug takes the humanity out of the user. Another example of a drug controlling the characters comes from their effects. For the experiments to happen, a drug that makes the two subject immediately fall in love is administered. When at the first Jeff considers his test partner, Heather, as average looking, the drug instantly makes him think she is the most beautiful person in the world as if he “found the precise arrangement of body/face/mind that personified all that was desirable.” (49) This drug tells Jeff what is perfect. He has no control over what he feels. He has to take drugs to make connections with other humans. The comedy of this turns into something more serious in tone by the end, but this is crucial to the success of the satire. What further separates Saunders's stories from being a flat satire is his appeal to human compassion.

At the climax of the story, Jeff must decide which of the two women he was drugged into finding desirable and making love with has to receive this drug that brings forward the strongest emotional pain a person can ever receive. Jeff can’t decide between the two women, so the man that’s the lead scientist of these test tries to belittle one of the women by bringing up the woman’s past. He mentions that she was a thief that stole from her own family. He mentions she was a drug addict and went to jail. This an attempt to make someone look bad for surface level reasons. Jeff ignores the attempt and still refuses to decide. This shows that Jeff has chosen compassion for this person he barely knows. Because of this choice, Jeff, gains confidence and by the end of the story, breaks the system and escapes Spiderhead. The story ends with Jeff noticing the birds around him and their freedom. He realizes he is “happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, [he] had not killed, and never would.” (Saunders 81)  There is a sense of relief and compassion for this character. As Neeper recognizes in his study of Saunders work called “To Soften the Heart”, “Rather than stories ending with the emergence of some amorphous sense of correction, Saunders’s stories intend only one development: the empathetic improvement of his audience.” (285) This idea is what makes Saunders more successful and unique. Other satire exists to point out a folly and suggest remedy. With this lofty goal, they tend to fall short. Saunders’s doesn’t exist to suggest a big remedy. He only wants the reader to understand that we are all human and have own follies. This appeal to compassion causes the story to linger with the reader. His willingness to look at all sides of a human helps his stories reach a wide array of readers and helps his stories separate themselves from satire’s nature to be partially cynical. This success to cause people to consider others who are different from them helps makes his satire successful.   

Saunders's work is widely praised and it’s hard to find a negative review. This difficulty causes this section of the paper where counter arguments are addressed to focus on this idea that satire is dying. In Ted Gioia’s piece “The Death of Satire,” he argues satire is now turning into clickbait and doesn’t have any real substance. He suggests modern satire is dying because the main influx is killing it. The argument he puts forward only considers television satire and the satirical website, The Onion. Sure, in the world of television satire, his argument make sense, but his argument fall apart because he doesn’t even look at other mediums. He makes a blanket statement about satire without looking at all sides of the genre. This short-sight shows how important satirical fiction is as an alternative to popular satire. Saunders’s stories do the opposite of what Gioia thinks all modern satire does. They don’t just touch the surface, they consider the human experience and delve into it in a deep way. It isn’t clickbait. Saunders’s stories act as a teleporter that takes the reader to the heart of the human experience, even in the middle of his whimsical and chaotic plots.

Satire is a genre that can delve into many different ideas. It functions as a mirror and helps stick to the reader through its use of humor. This unique nature should be celebrated, but that celeration can only happen when satire really considers human nature and looks past the surface. For those people who love satire, why settle for the hit-or-miss nature of television satire when there is this world of hard-hitting and compassionate satirical fiction like Saunders’s stories? He is a writer that deserves your attention and his unique way of looking at all facets of the human experience is what makes satire important. This compassion is what makes satirical fiction and fiction in general important. Fiction has the ability to make a reader understand and feel some connection to even the most unlikely of people. It helps the reader understand a little more about the vast world around them, its flaws and its beauty.  

   