Humorous Essays: Satire, Self-Deprecation, and Social Commentary
This paper examines four humorous essays drawn from Robert Keith Miller's anthology Motives for Writing: "Would Hemingway Get Into Harvard?" by Katzman, Lutz, and Olson; "Technology Makes Me Mad" by Patricia Volk; "Breakfast at the FDA Cafe" by John R. Alden; and "Relationship Reruns" by Cindy Chupack. The paper analyzes how each essay uses a distinct comedic approach — from satirizing standardized testing and technology to spoofing regulatory culture and romantic relationships — to entertain readers while prompting genuine reflection. Taken together, the essays illustrate that effective humor is not merely entertainment but a powerful rhetorical tool for social critique.
- Introduction: Humor as a Rhetorical Tool: Framing humor as writing that provokes thought
- Satirizing Standardized Testing: 'Would Hemingway Get Into Harvard?': SAT writing test satirized using Hemingway and Shakespeare
- Technology and Personal Frustration: 'Technology Makes Me Mad': Volk's personal humor about technology frustrations
- Regulatory Absurdity: 'Breakfast at the FDA Cafe': Alden spoofs FDA warning labels and food regulation
- Relationships and Self-Deprecation: 'Relationship Reruns': Chupack likens bad relationships to TV reruns
- Conclusion: The Many Forms of Humorous Writing: Humor entertains while prompting genuine reflection
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- Each body paragraph follows a consistent structure: identify the essay, describe its comedic strategy, and provide a textual example with a brief explanation of why it works.
- The paper uses a direct quotation in nearly every paragraph to ground its claims in the primary texts, giving the analysis concrete support rather than relying on paraphrase alone.
- The conclusion ties all four essays together with a unifying observation — that humor entertains while prompting thought — which gives the paper a sense of purpose beyond mere summary.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative textual analysis at the introductory level: it reads multiple short texts alongside one another, identifies a shared quality (humor), and shows how each author achieves that quality through different means — satire, self-deprecation, personal anecdote, and regulatory spoof. This approach models how to use primary-text evidence to support an interpretive claim.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a framing statement about humorous writing, then devotes one paragraph to each of the four essays in sequence. Each paragraph introduces the author and work, explains the comedic method, supplies a direct quote, and evaluates the effect on the reader. A brief concluding paragraph draws the threads together. The single reference entry follows MLA-adjacent formatting consistent with the anthology source.
Introduction: Humor as a Rhetorical Tool
Effective humorous writing does more than amuse — it makes the reader stop and think. The four essays examined here each demonstrate a distinct comedic approach, yet all share the quality of using satire or irony to deliver a point that lingers after the laughter fades.
Satirizing Standardized Testing: 'Would Hemingway Get Into Harvard?'
In "Would Hemingway Get Into Harvard?" authors John Katzman, Andy Lutz, and Erik Olson offer a funny essay about the new SAT writing test. To "test" the test, they apply the SAT's grading standards to two passages by Ernest Hemingway and Shakespeare — two of the most celebrated writers in the English language. Predictably, both writers receive failing grades. The authors use this absurd outcome to argue that the SAT writing test is not a genuine measure of a person's writing ability, and they make that argument in a memorable, entertaining way.
The essay is so well constructed that readers cannot help but smile — both at the humor of the premise and at the revealing nature of the result. By exposing the SAT's limitations through such celebrated literary examples, the authors turn comedy into genuine critique.
Technology and Personal Frustration: 'Technology Makes Me Mad'
Patricia Volk's "Technology Makes Me Mad" is a humorous look at the high-tech world and everything she finds infuriating about it. Anyone who has ever struggled with technology of any kind will enjoy this piece; it is almost enough to make a reader laugh out loud. For example, she writes: "But I feel betrayed when my state-of-the-art refrigerator breaks down. State-of-the-art actually means no one's really sure it works right yet" (Miller 577).
Her humor is designed to amuse, and it succeeds because it is deeply personal. By grounding the comedy in her own frustrations, Volk invites readers to see themselves in her situation. The self-deprecating and relatable tone transforms a complaint into shared laughter.
Conclusion: The Many Forms of Humorous Writing
All of these essays show the different forms humorous writing can take, from poking fun at oneself to poking fun at society in general. Humorous writing still makes a point and asks the reader to think, but it entertains at the same time — and that is what makes it such a pleasure to read.
References
Miller, Robert Keith. Motives for Writing with Student Access to Catalyst. McGraw Hill, 2005.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.