TERRY PRATCHETT’S INTERESTING TIMES AS AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICAL SATIRE

Abstract

Satire, which is a humorous criticism made to take the society further from its current location, can be defined as a tradition that has been intertwined with literature for centuries. Political satire, which is an important part of satire, is thought to have developed with modern satire, which is characterized by the prominence of social criticism. The fact that criticisms of politics and therefore society reach people through literary texts emphasizes the importance of literature at this point. When the criticism is made in a fantastic world, the readers can be more interested and the messages given can be understood much more clearly since the readers isolate themselves from the work. Readers have the opportunity to evaluate the events that take place in a fantasy world without being influenced by the prejudices, beliefs and political ideologies of our real world, and in this way, they can look at the issues related to our real world from a different perspective with a critical point of view. English writer Terry Pratchett is one of the first names that come to mind when satirical and fantasy literature are mentioned together. In Pratchett’s Discworld novels series, which consists of forty-one novels, it is possible to find his messages including his satires about society, politics, environment and economy between the lines of his novels. In this study, it is aimed to examine the political satire in the author’s novel, Interesting Times, selected from the Discworld series. Also, while making these analyses about the novel, various satirical techniques such as unexpected honesty, unexpected event and irony, suggested by Feinberg, and the author’s word choices were taken into consideration, and how these techniques were used in the novel were revealed with the quotations from the novel.