In Praise of Folly vs Gargantua and Pantagruel
The books in praise of folly and gargantuan and pantagruel are very amusing books. They present their issues in a way that is very amusing and indeed very appealing to the reader. If a person were to read these works without being keen and paying attention to detail and stylistic techniques of writing such as irony and humor the reader would easily confuse these works for comical pieces with just one aim of giving people a good laugh. This could not be any further from the truth. These books deal with contemporary issues affecting mainstream society and especially the authority figures and the people who deem themselves as sophisticated and cultured. The following essay delves deep into these books. The essay shall compare the two books in terms of the issues they present about society and the way in which they present it. The essay shall also examine strategy used by the authors to mask their true message so as to ensure that their works receive circulation as opposed to immediate condemnation and even banning by the powers that be.
The first very important issue is how these two authors avoided censorship and even imprisonment for their blatant attacks on the authority figures of their time. The author of the book in praise of folly mostly uses irony. Irony means making one statement that seems to mean one thing but deeper analysis reveals that it means an entirely different thing. He also blended irony with humor or rather presented his breed of ironic statements with strings of humor which made his main message not so obvious to the powers that be back at the time of the publication of the work. The author of gargantuan and pantagruel also uses humor in his work. This humor is aimed at endearing his work to the audience. The author blends humor with satire and although he is directly attacking the authority figures and especially the religious authority it appears as if he is teasing them in a friendly way. The author of gargantuan and pantagruel therefore managed to avoid censorship by endearing his work to the audience using humor.
The book in praise of folly is a direct attack on people who deem themselves as sophisticated and cultured and important members of society. These people in most cases look down on people who society deems as fools. Fools have little value in society as everyone looks down upon them. The author however juxtaposes a fool and a cultured member of society and the result is an endless onslaught on the so called cultured society. The author acknowledges that primarily the fools reserve the right to speak their minds. By considering himself a fool he therefore has a blank cheese in terms of what he can say about society and the so called sophisticated people. The author them explains how the stress levels of a complicated member of society are ever rising while those of a fool are ever verging on zero. According to the author it is better to be a fool because a fool has so much more liberties as opposed to the self-inflicted slavery of the so called intelligent people.
In gargantuan and pantagruel the author is on a total onslaught of the Catholic Church and the education system. The author focuses on how the education system though very enlightening is a form of enslavement to the people. Even old people are forced to go back to school in pursuit of knowledge.
