Botton's Arguments

Botton Essay Classical Argument Humorists are people who are skillful in using humor for writing, talking, or acting. Their works bring laughter and elation to people. In Botton’s book, Status Anxiety, he believes that humorists not only entertain audience, but also convey important messages that cannot be said directly. Thus, he argues that humorists play a vital role in the society. In most cases, Botton’s claim is justified in that since the early nineteenth century, humorists express their thoughts about the society through humor. Some of these humorists do play important roles in the society by revealing crisis or events happening during that time period to bring awareness from the society. Humorists, such as cartoonists and satirical writers, use their own methods to tell about issues happening in the society while putting humor into their work. One of the famous political cartoonists in the nineteen-century, Thomas Nast, draws political cartoons about the corrupted government and notorious business leaders during his time period. Some of his famous works, such as the drawings of Boss Tweed and Tammy
In poetry slam, some people use humor and irony that have messages that they want the audience to know. One of the participants, Katie Makkai presents her poem, Pretty, which has deep meaning behind it. She does brings laughter from the crowd as she begins her poetry about her childhood and brings out a naïve persona. As the poem goes on, she slowly implies to the audience that nobody can be call “pretty”, by reasoning that everyone has flaws since he or she is born. She uses herself as one of the example and tells that one can be “pretty intelligent, pretty creative” , but not “pretty”. Thus, Makkau is able to get audience attention through her humorous beginning of the poem and also bring some important life messages to her