Scoop: A Novel about Journalists
Through a close examination of two or three passages from ‘Scoop’ and consideration of other examples of satire that you have read, explore how ‘Scoop’ works as a satire.

‘Scoop’, published in 1938, was one of Evelyn Waugh’s earliest novels. In this novel Waugh presents a humorous and satirical view on Fleet Street journalists and their frenzied hunt of a scoop. Other novels, such as ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ by Jonathan Swift and ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell, both portray satirical messages throughout. In ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, Swift satirises human nature, and the political system and government. He uses Gulliver as a satirical device, and in order to portray the sarcasm and over-exaggeration of what Swift is satirising, he sends Gulliver on three journeys to strange lands, where he encounters odd people and thing, more tools that Swift uses. Gulliver's first journey takes him to the Land of Lilliput, where the local inhabitants of the land are six inch tall beings and he is a giant. His next journey brings him to Brobdingnag, where his situation is reversed, and he is a midget among giants. His third journey leads him to Laputa, a floating island which is inhabited by strange beings who derive their whole culture from music and mathematics. And finally Gulliver's fourth journey places him in the land of the Houyhnhnm, a society of intelligent, reasoning horses. By creating these four mysterious, ridiculous yet rather amusing journeys, Swift is able to add irony and satire of the English political system and the human ways. In Gulliver’s first journey for example, he gets ship-wrecked and swims ashore. When he wakes up, he finds himself tied to the ground by tiny people. Swift uses this to satirise the power of humans, and portrays the irony of a giant being tied down and held prisoner by tiny people. Also, Swift uses the strange customs that they have in Lilliput as a satire. In order to be chosen to go into public office, a man must "rope dance" as well as he is able, and the best rope dancer receives the higher office. Also, they did not choose public officers on skill, but instead, on how well the candidate could line the right pockets with money. The Lilliputians also have a custom of burying their dead with their heads directly downwards. With this, Swift is satirising the conditions of Europe, and comparing and contrasting the Lilliputians' traditions, to in Swifts eyes, the absurdity in European ones. In ‘Scoop’, Waugh uses roughly the same techniques and devices of character and place, but instead satirises journalism. Waugh exaggerates journalists and their hunt for a scoop. A rather amusing passage is when William Boot, a contributor of nature notes to The Beast (Lord Copper’s newspaper), is summoned to London to visit Lord Copper himself. This is a huge mistake, as small time writer William Boot has been outrageously mistaken for prestigious novelist John Courteney Boot. William Boot first finds out when he receives a telegram, delivered to Boot Magna Hall, saying, ‘REQUEST YOUR IMMEDIATE PRESENCE HERE / URGENT LORD COPPERS PERSONAL DESIRE / SALTER BEAST. The whole family doesn’t understand what it could be for, as the third housemaid says, ‘It couldn’t hardly be a death, all the family’s here.’ This shows how unexpected it is, and how unusual it is for the Boot family to receive such a demanding and important telegram. When William Boot does reach London and arrives at the Megalopolitan building, he assumes he has been called to write about ‘great crested grebes’ and ‘badgers’. In these few pages, Waugh satirises and exaggerates the disorganisation of journalism. He adds plenty of humour in these pages, especially how William Boot expects to be writing about ‘great crested grebes’ and ‘badgers’. Even the names of places are exaggerated, like the ‘Megalopolitan building’. When he is in Mr Salter’s office, he asks Boot ‘You don’t happen to know where Reykjavik is?’ and when Boot says that he doesn’t, Mr Salter says ‘Pity. I hoped you might. No one in the office does.’ This is humorous, as it is a journalist office and usually assumed that journalists know places around the world due to all of their traveling and reporting. Boot says ‘I expect you want to talk about the great crested grebe’, and receives a reply saying ‘Good God, no’. This shows how little communication everyone has. The second book that I am going to look at is ‘Animal Farm’, in which Orwell indirectly attacks the Russian Communism. Orwell uses humorous and effective techniques to attack on the events of the Russian Revolution and on the totalitarian regime in Russia. In the first chapter of the book, old Major, tells the animals about his dream. He says he dreams of a different life for the animals and encourages them to take action against the cruel owner of the Manor Farm, Mr Jones. Old Major dies soon after his dream is confronted to the other animals, and it is not long before all of the animals rebel. They expel Jones and rename the farm as Animal Farm. This satirises Stalin and shows how disliked he is by everyone. Orwell uses two devices to satirise Stalin and the totalitarian regime in Russia. Firstly, he tells the story from the view of the animals. This means that the reader is first focused on the animals, and secondly the humans. Orwell's skilful management of the point of view enables him to make the reader like the animals but also realise that the animals are eventually going to be overrun by the plotting pigs. This viewpoint therefore creates ironic distance between the reader and the characters, because the reader can see that the pigs are plotting something, but the animals are unaware of this. The second device that Orwell uses is characterisation. He gives the animals lots of human characteristics and traits, and makes the language very simple. This makes the reader think that the book is set in an animal world and that humans don’t exist. This is Orwell making the reader concentrate on the animals again, rather than the humans. Orwell gives all of the animals specific traits and this places them in the farm in their own specific positions and gives them their own jobs. This book is another example of an author satirising something different, and it contrasts to ‘Scoop’ in many ways, such as what devices Waugh uses to satirise journalism, the language and other literate skills. The final passage from ‘Scoop’ that I want to talk about, is when Boot is on a boat making his way to Ishmaelia when he bumps into Corker, a journalist for the U.N. In this passage, Waugh is again mocking the intelligence of journalists, and how disorganised they are. When Corker tells Boot of how he was sent off to Ishmaelia, when Corker asked ‘What’s the story?’ his chief replies, ‘a lot of niggers are having a war.’ This is funny, but also satirises the incompetence of journalists and how they go after everything, even if they don’t think it will make a decent story. There are more questions asked by Boot about journalism that portray the same incompetence and exaggerated lack of intelligence of journalists. Boot asks, ‘What is U.N.?’ This is very humorous, because any journalist would know of National News, as it is one of the biggest news agencies. The reply to this question from Corker is ‘no kidding?’ which comes from a more sensible and intelligent point of view, basically implying ‘how are you are journalist if you don’t know that the U.N. is?’ Then, to make matters even worse, Boot asks ‘and what, please, is a news agency?’ This is another question that is mocking journalists and makes Boot out to be very new in journalism, but also unintelligent. With these humorous questions, Waugh satirises the intelligence of journalists, mocking them and what they do. It is very witty and Waugh uses very clever devices like the language and characterisation to show which journalists are more competent than others. So, throughout ‘Scoop’, Waugh uses very clever devices and techniques to retain the humour, but also mock and over-exaggerate journalists and their job. Satires range from a wide variety, as you saw with ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, and each author manages to create his own ways of satirising what ever he wants. All in all, ‘Scoop’ is a humorous novel, in which Waugh successfully manages to satirise journalists and their overplayed jobs.

Bibliography:

www.wikepedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoop_(novel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels http://www.yourdictionary.com/grammar/examples/satire-examples.html http://thesaurus.com/
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gulliver/