Samuel Butler’s Satirical Presentation of the Victorian Age

Satire was unfurling its wings for higher flights, and even developing new ones in self-complacent and industrially dominated Victorian times. The boldest rebel and the harshest critic of the Victorian age, Samuel Butler (1835-1902) added a new dimension to this art by his cheerfulness, unorthodoxy, irreverence towards the social, ecclesiastical and educational institutions of the age. Though he often seems wayward and paradoxical, he stood for the ideals of humanism. He was decidedly a modern thinker applying his common sense to point out the deficiencies of the civilization of Europe. The planted errors and absurdities in the English life made him react vehemently. Butler as a true satirist carried the assault into the citadel of entrenched respectability. Modern civilization, parental tyranny, the worship of machinery, orthodox beliefs and religious ideologies, uncongenial family atmosphere, ruthless exploitation of hypocritical church institutions, the treatment of crime and sickness were aspects of contemporary society which Butler dealt and satirized with shrewd and penetrating irony.