• Caricature — A representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject's distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect. Sometimes caricature can be so exaggerated that it becomes a grotesque imitation or misrepresentation. Synonymous words include burlesque, parody, travesty, lampoon.

• Hyperbole — A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. Hyperboles sometimes have a comic effect; however, a serious effect is also possible. Hyperbole often produces irony at the same time.

• Understatement — The ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be humorous and emphatic. Understatement is the opposite of hyperbole.

• Irony — The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant; the difference between what appears to be and what actually is true. Irony is used for many reasons, but frequently, it's used to create poignancy or humor.

• Wit — In modern usage, wit is intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. A witty statement is humorous, while suggesting the speaker's verbal power in creating ingenious and perceptive remarks. Wit usually uses terse language that makes a pointed statement.

• Sarcasm — From the Greek meaning, "to tear flesh," sarcasm involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt of ridicule someone or something. It may use irony as a device, but not all ironic statements are sarcastic. When well done, sarcasm can be witty and insightful; when poorly done, it's simply cruel.

• Allusion — A direct or indirect reference to something that is presumably commonly know, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art. Allusions can be historical, literary, religious, or mythical. A work may simultaneously use multiple layers of allusion.

• Juxtaposition — Placing dissimilar items, descriptions, or ideas close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.

Frequently, satire is characterized as one of two types: Horatian satire is gentle, urbane, smiling; it aims to correct with broadly sympathetic laughter. Based on the Roman lyrical poet Horace, its purpose may be "to hold up a mirror" so readers can see themselves and their world honestly. The vices and follies satirized are not destructive; however, they reflect the foolishness of people, the superficiality and meaninglessness of their lives, and the barrenness of their values. Juvenalian satire is biting, bitter, and angry; it points out the corruption of human beings and institutions with contempt, using saeva indignation, a savage outrage based on the style of the Roman poet Juvenal. Sometimes perceived as enraged, Juvenalian satire sees the vices and follies in the world as intolerable. Juvenalian satirists use large doses of sarcasm and irony. If you do receive a piece of satire to discuss in your essay topics, be aware of the rhetorical devices of the satirist and use them to your advantage.

Lady Bracknell’s offstage marriage is one of the play’s running gags, and Lord Bracknell is the butt of a good many of its jokes about marriage. He seems to be the victim of a kind of abstract domestic abuse—ignored, unconsidered, hidden away, and relegated to the status of an idiot or invalid child. When Lady Bracknell tells Algernon that his absence from the dinner party will require her husband to dine “upstairs,” she means “not with the servants.” The implication is that she usually makes him eat in the kitchen, away from the family or from company. Lord Bracknell seems to lead the life of a recluse and to have taken refuge from his domineering wife and daughter in a chronic invalidism. Lacy Bracknell makes vague, off-hand references to his failing health, and Gwendolen tells Cecily that “Outside the family circle, papa . . . is entirely unknown,” adding, “I think that is quite as it should be.” The image of the offstage Lord Bracknell, faint though it is, seems in keeping with the play’s depiction of gender roles, which posit a reversal of the Victorian expectations of the two sexes: women are competent and aggressive and men are weak, ineffectual creatures, to be warehoused or treated like children. Thirty years after Algernon and Jack’s father’s death, no one can even remember his name.