Satire can be summarised as a literary technique that employs humor, exaggeration, and irony to expose and scrutinize issues within current society. It can be present in texts that criticize components of political, social, philosophical, or even everyday life. Satire is extremely powerful, though not in an obvious way. It exists to discomfort those that are usually in the position of oppressors or those that afflicting while comforting those that are afflicted. As such, the difficulty of understanding satire is usually in the extent to which satire goes. In the contemporary world where irony and sarcasm are frequently utilized in text with differing levels of clarity, it may be difficult to comprehend whether something is or isn’t satire. Additionally, the values of the reader play an important role in their understanding of a satirical text. Not all satire is humorous, and as such, certain readers may not initially understand the purpose of the text and its honesty.
‘On The Slave Trade’ is a satirical, abolitionist piece of writing that suggests that the slave trade continues to exist in order for sharks to be able to eat slaves that have fallen into the ocean. The humor of the piece is very dark and controversial for many, as it does not offer a humanistic approach towards those afflicted by prejudice. Additionally, the text almost reads like a cautionary tale instead of satire, which further steers it from the abolitionist ideology that it claims it is. It can be considered Juvenalian satire which suggests that a very serious theme or topic is negated by the comical nature of satire. It is explicitly done in ‘On The Slave Trade’ in which the tragedy of slavery is minimized to a joke about feeding sharks.