Philosophies, Pretenses, and Styles of Satire in Barchester Towers and The Way of All Flesh Natasha Borden College

As Walter Wagoner wrote, "Satire is humor on an errand. It is wit used with a vengeance, rejecting the facades of the godly, insisting on reminding those within the Holy of Holies that their pretense is showing". It is this "pretense" that is satirized and lampooned in both the novels Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope and The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler. The two books can be said to have superficial similarities, the use of a narrator and similar subject matter, ridiculing the hypocrisy of the Church of England as well as those who claim to adhere to, but fail to practice, Christian values, but it is the differences between the novels which are pointedly notable; they both not only employ very different styles of humor and overall tone, but the subtexts on which they are based are contrary to one another. The humor and ridicule of Barchester Towers gently yet clearly promotes the Victorian ideal of patriarchy and the maintenance of traditions above the chaos that is brought by change, and The Way of All Flesh uses pointed irony and shocking cruelty to expose, and break free from, the tyranny of the past, the traditional, the presumed duties and obligations of society in favor of the pursuit of pleasure and the...