Final answer:
Satire is rarely portrayed as endearing or sympathetic to prevent the audience from accepting or forgiving the target's behavior. It uses humor and ridicule to encourage change and critical thinking. Good satire maintains a subtle critical distance while still engaging the reader.
Step-by-step explanation:
Complete the sentence. satire is rarely portrayed as endearing or sympathetic, which would create the risk of the audience accepting or forgiving the target's shameful behavior. Satire is a complex literary form which uses humor, exaggeration, or ridicule to criticize human follies and vices. The intent is to provoke thought and encourage change rather than to simply entertain.
Writing good satire requires maintaining a balance, not being overly sympathetic, to provoke reflection, without alienating the audience. To this end, authors might employ a naive narrator or a straightforward narrative style to leave the critical thinking to the reader. This crafted distance helps maintain the subtlety of satire without diluting its impactful message.
Juvenal, a master of ancient Roman satire, deftly utilized this literary device to comment on the hypocrisies of his time. In Satire 2, he takes on the subject of people who display a moral front in public while engaging in immoral behavior in private, highlighting the slow decline in societal standards and morals in Roman society.