Swift’s satire and exaggeration
A CONTROVERSIAL WRITER
DEFINITION OF SATIRE. For him, satire is not just entertainment but a moral tool: he exaggerates human
flaws to make them impossible to ignore, and he uses irony to expose the gap between what people claim to be
and what they really are.
By pushing ideas to their extreme, he reveals the hidden cruelty, hypocrisy, or irrationality behind everyday
behavior. Through this method, Swift criticizes universal human weaknesses—vanity, corruption, selfishness,
and the abuse of power—while encouraging readers to reflect on their own role in these problems.
Defoe’s realism
Daniel Defoe is considered one of the founders of English realism, and Robinson Crusoe is the best example of
how he transforms the novel into a detailed, believable representation of everyday life. His realism comes from
the way he describes actions, objects and routines with extreme precision: lists, measurements, dates, tools,
food, weather, work. Nothing is vague or symbolic; everything seems practical and concrete, as if the reader
were following a real diary. This documentary style creates the illusion that Robinson’s story actually
happened, and this is one of Defoe’s greatest innovations.
Realism for Defoe is also connected to the values of the middle class. Robinson survives not thanks to heroism
or destiny, but through work, discipline, planning and rational thinking. He observes, calculates, experiments
and improves his situation step by step. This trust in reason is central: Defoe believes that human intelligence,
especially the English one, can organise the world and rebuild society even in isolation. Robinson’s island
becomes a miniature England, with agriculture, order, property and productivity. This reflects the spirit of the
time: the rise of capitalism, colonial expansion and the idea of the self-made man.
Another aspect of Defoe’s realism is his attention to psychological reactions. Robinson is not a flat character:
he feels fear, loneliness, guilt, hope. His spiritual reflections, especially about Providence, make the story even
more realistic because they show how a real person might react in extreme conditions.
Finally, Defoe’s realism also has a political dimension. The relationship between Robinson and Friday reflects
the colonial mentality of the period: the European man sees himself as superior and “civilises” the other. Even
this, however, is presented in a realistic way, without idealisation.
Richardson’s subjectivity
One of the most important innovations introduced by Richardson in Pamela and Clarissa is the strong sense of
subjectivity. Through the epistolary form, the story is not presented by an external narrator but directly through
the voices of the characters. This means that the reader enters their minds, their emotions and their moral
struggles in a way that had never been done before. The letters do not simply describe events: they show how
each character perceives those events, how they interpret them, and how their feelings change from moment to
moment.
In Pamela, the letters create an intimate connection between the protagonist and the reader. Pamela writes to
her parents, and this gives her voice sincerity and immediacy. We see her fear, her hopes, her confusion, and the
pressure of a society that tries to control her. Everything is filtered through her perspective, and this makes the
reader experience the story “from the inside”. The same happens in Clarissa, but in a more complex way: the
novel includes letters from different characters, sometimes describing the same event from different points of
view. This multiplicity of voices creates a sense of psychological depth and moral ambiguity. The reader must
constantly interpret, compare and judge the reliability of each narrator.
