The cautious understatements of irony are often in marked contrast with the overstatements and sharp emotional intensity of satirical comment. Indeed, the laughter of satire appears more spiteful, contemptuous, scoring the badness of actuality, as against that of irony, which appears more concerned with the ought to be, deploring the defects of what is in comparison with ideality. As against the ironist's use of inversion to encourage thinking for oneself, the satirist employs rhetoric, analogy, imagery, and invective. While irony persuades us through our own mental exertions, satire tries by tricks of literary suggestion to convince us that its opponents are wicked and depraved.
