Use of satire in An Enemy of the People

Drawing your illustrations from Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the people write an essay on how satire has been used.
i) Introduction                                                                                             (2mks)
   -Expect a definition of satire or an example of satire
   -Expect also a general statement of what to expect in the essay
    ii) Body                                                                                                          (12mks)

• The role of the media is satirized. Its role in community matters has been ridiculed. The Mayor through the media counter attacks the Doctor’s discovery that the Baths are a health hazard to the whole society. In his letter to the peoples’ messenger, he claims to have put the essential facts before the public in such a way that every fair-minded citizen can easily form his own opinion.
• It is ironical that Houstad makes comments that portray the people’s messenger positively yet it is clear that the paper is wrong. The writer uses this to satirize the media. The paper fails to portray the clear picture of the unscrupulous and the poor state of affairs the society is in.
• Hovstad, the editor of the people’s messenger is also satirized. He rejects a positive comment from the Doctor that he claims to be a free thinker. Hovstad in fear of the crowd is astonished. Yet as a writer and an editor he ought to be a free thinker not influenced by the common majority.
• To satirize the common or compact majority and their leaders the imagery of common mongrel and common barnyard hen he is used. The leaders are compared to well bred Spanish or Japanese hen, good pleasant or turkey or poodle whose brain is developed to a different degree from that of the mongrel.

• The common people including the Mayor are satirized – their intensive nature and twist of truth to suit themselves is summarized in the following imagery and comments:

  
  

  “The kind of common people….. not only to be found low down in the social side, they crawl and swarm all around us – even in the highest social positions. You have only to look at your own fine pretty Mayor! My brother Peter is every bit as plebeian as anyone that walks on two legs.

• The political situation in the country is also satirized. Dr. Stockmann says that from one end of the country to the other every man is slave of his party. That every man had no freedom to free thinking and has to go by his party’s whims.
• The crowd that attacked the Doctors house is satirized. They threatened to break every bone in his body. They do not do anything apart from following each other. They suffer from the fear of doing what is right for fear of the opinion the public will have.

iii) Conclusion
-Expect a recap or general statement/remark on the use of satire in the novel.