Corn Pone Humor: Folksy and Homespun in Manner of Speech; Down Home Countrified

Satire Unit

Corn-Pone Opinions by Mark Twain

 Corn pone humor: folksy and homespun in manner of speech; “down home” “countrified”

 Short sentences/ fragments

 What is the subject of Twain’s satire?

o Society in general/ Americans

o Desire/ need to conform

 What is Twain’s thesis?

o Human instinct to conform

o Independent thought is very rare.

 Rhetorical questions

 Induction/ Deduction format

o Opening anecdote as inductive reasoning

o Inductive leap/ thesis

o Deductive argument- examples, elements that Twain satirizes to support his thesis

. Clothing- hoopskirt

. England- wine glasses

. Literature- Shakespeare . Religion, politics (page 719 bottom)- Shifts to heavier/ harsher satire due to subject matter

o Twain’s growing intensity of satire: Page 720 – more invective, fervent, insulting, accusatory in nature

 Deductive conclusion: We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it the Voice of God.

Key Questions:

 Effect of pronoun changes- Changing from I to We.

 Effect of parallelism in the two long sentences of paragraph 14.

 Effect of capitalization at end – Public Opinion and Voice of God.

 Examples of understatement and hyperbole (satirical techniques)