Comedy Gold : How Humour is Used as Social Criticism in Terry Pratchett’s Making Money

Abstract: Abstract Pratchett‟s absence from being mentioned in the same breath as great satirists such as Swift, Chaucer or Dryden to mention a few, could be because Pratchett‟s choice of genre is fantasy which is, by many, considered a „lesser‟ genre. One can wonder though in what ways the imagined nations and peoples of the Discworld series differ from some of the encounters made by Gulliver in Swift‟s Gulliver’s Travels. This could indicate that the genre is not necessarily the reason why Pratchett‟s work is not considered classic satire, but rather the fact that he is still too contemporary. My intention with this essay is to argue that Pratchett is a satirist, particularly in the way he uses a select few kinds of satire to craft social commentary that is relevant to not only the worlds he creates, but ours as well. However, it is also my view that Pratchett‟s one major downfall is that the humor he uses to make social commentary can also be so heavy-handed that the reader, at times, misses the point entirely as well as the fact that his writing is clearly coloured by an agenda that makes him rather biased. While most of Pratchett‟s satire is easy to understand at first glance for most readers, some of it is not and requires that the reader share some of the same political and social views as the author.