Why is this a satire?
Ohio State was a land grant university and, therefore, two years of military drill was compulsory. We drilled with old Springfield rifles and studied the tactics of the Civil War, even though the World War was going on at the time. At 11 o'clock each morning thousands of freshmen and sophomores used to deploy over the campus, moodily creeping up on the chemistry building. It was good training for the kind of warfare that was waged at Shiloh, but it had no connection with what was going on in Europe. Some people used to think there was German money behind it, but they didn't dare say so, or they would have been thrown in jail as German spies. It was a period of muddy thought and marked, I believe, the decline of higher education in the Middle East.
The passage is a good example of what type of writing?
a. humor
b. satire (answer)
c. sardonic
d. situational irony
e. historical fiction
satire=literary ridicule done with HUMOR
but where is the humor in the passage?I need help.Thank you!Correction: It must be Middle West, not Middle East, in the last sentence.should*
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คำตอบ · 7
3
First, it should be the Middle West, a region of the central US, not the Middle East. It's by James Thurber, who attended Ohio State from 1913-1918, so he's referring to the first World War. He's mocking the idea of teaching Civil War tactics on a college campus during a war that required completely different tactics. The humor is in the line about people suggesting "German money" was behind it, meaning that the Germans (the enemy) were funding this training because it would make the Americans easier to defeat if they were inadequately trained.
2
Good question? Not sure about the reference to the Middle East at the end, except that evidently Shiloh is a biblical city, as well as a town where a US Civil War battle was fought.
Anyway, possible humour:
They are studying war tactics of the American Civil War (1860s) when "The World War" was happening (Not sure if this is 1st or 2nd WW)
The students are "moodily creeping up on the chemistry building" suggests that they don't want to do it and attacking a chemistry building is a bit silly.
"There was German money behind it" suggests that this training is a waste of time and more help to the Germans than the Allies.
1
I personally do not understand why "sardonic" ("disdainfully or skeptically humorous; derisively mocking") wouldn't be an equally good answer. Much of the humor is in the use of wording that is exaggerated--making everything stronger and going farther than you would if you meant it seriously.
For example, suppose someone actually thought this training was a good idea. They would not write "thousands of freshmen and sophomores used to deploy over the campus, moodily creeping up on the chemistry building." Everything about this is a little overdone. For example, "deploy" suggests a dead serious military maneuver. It is comic, because a chemistry building is not a military target. Instead they would write "students maneuvered over the hills of the campus, learning to see terrain and buildings as a military tactician would."
Similarly, "it marked, I believe, the decline of higher education in the Middle [West]" is humorous. He just means "it seemed stupid, wasteful, and not appropriate for an academic institution.
It is not humor in the sense of having jokes with punch lines, of course.
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