Caricature

Caricature Definition

A caricature is a device used in writing and visual arts that exaggerates someone’s distinguishing personality or physical features. While the artist at the fair exaggerated your physical appearance, writers use caricature in literature to exaggerate and oversimplify personality features.

For example, consider Charles Dickens’s description of one of his characters in his novel, Bleak House (1853):

The description of Mr. Chadband only includes a few characteristics, which makes these features all the more prominent. Dickens was a master of caricature, so the descriptive words and phrases “yellow,” “fat,” and “train oil in his system” are meant to sum this character up as a cowardly, greasy fellow.

When using caricature to describe someone, the writer usually intends a comedic effect by describing the individual with magnified characteristics. In literature, caricature is a type of satire.

Types of Caricatures

Caricature as a literary device can be used in many ways. It is most typically used to enhance the features of someone or something to make it recognizable, make fun of it, or comment on it in some way.

Political Caricature

Caricature as a literary genre can be traced back to the comedies of Aristophanes in ancient Athens around 425 B.C., and further back still in the visual arts. The plays of Aristophanes poked fun at political leaders of his time and offered a critique of their attitudes and policies (at his peril).

People still use caricature as a lighthearted but direct way to criticize topics of modern politics. During the Civil War era, an artist named Thomas Nast created some of America’s most lasting political images, such as Uncle Sam, as well as the donkey and the elephant to represent the two political parties. You’ll still find caricature images in newspapers and magazines as a way to comment on political subjects that readers can easily interpret.

Authors also use political caricature in literature. Take George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945), in which he criticizes Russian politics and its leaders, who made promises of equality but delivered a heavily segregated society.

Throughout the novel, humans are the “bad guys,” but the pigs slowly stooped to the level of corruption of the humans. In these final lines of the book, Orwell masterfully wields caricature to finally equate humans and pigs.

Caricature of the Individual

Caricature can also describe or explain individuals in a story. A caricature could highlight anything from physical features to personality traits, to group affiliations. Anything you might use to describe someone can be caricatured.

Racial caricature has been a common theme of literature throughout the centuries. Below is a quote from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (1600) in which Solanio expresses a highly caricatured depiction of Shylock, a Jewish man.

In Solanio’s description of Shylock’s behavior, he emphasizes an obsession with money—which rivals his consideration for his daughter—which is a problematic Jewish stereotype.

Caricature Examples

Literature is rich with examples of caricatures because many authors understand the comedy of a well-placed caricature. A caricature can act as a mirror for the reader; it makes them examine their assumptions about the subject on a deeper level.

Scrooge is an unthinkably cold-hearted man, and thus in need of guidance from the ghosts that eventually come to visit him.

On the other hand, literature is unfortunately also rich with examples of poor uses of caricatures. Some authors rely on stereotypes and archetypes too much, rather than creating complex characters.

This representation of a young slave girl is problematic because it displays her as a worthless character that has to be dragged along through the action of the story. This caricature draws on notions of superiority from a privileged white society.

Purpose of a Caricature

Because caricature is a comedic device, its purpose is usually to get people to laugh at its subject. Caricature can be used to simply point out character flaws and imperfections, but most often it does this to make a commentary about a person, group of people, or even society at large.

Finding good husbands for her daughters is Mrs. Bennett’s only care, but this is not a poor reflection on her as a mother or woman. Rather, the reader understands that she feels the social weight of her daughters’ obligation in society to marry well, and is obsessed with helping them.

Caricature as a Logical Fallacy

Caricatures can also be used as a way to make an opposing argument seem more simple than it truly is. Caricature, used in this way, results in a logical fallacy.

When a person challenges another person's argument, they may try to misrepresent the opponent’s argument to make it easier to attack. This technique is called the straw man fallacy, and it uses caricature to create a false opponent.

With this speech, President Nixon has made his critics out to be monsters that wanted to take a dog away from his little girl, rather than rational people who wished to hold him accountable for his fraudulence.

Caricature Characteristics

The details of a person or thing can be exaggerated or simplified in caricature.

Caricatures quickly communicate the distinguishing details of a person or thing. In some cases that might mean overstating some features to make them more prominent, and other times it means reducing the characteristics to a simplified version to make it more recognizable.

Caricature Exaggerates

Exaggeration is a hallmark of a caricature. Remember how a caricature portrait will exaggerate your prominent features? Caricature in literature does the same thing; it must overstate these characteristics if it wishes to make commentary on them.

Caricature Simplifies

Sometimes, though, an author might create a caricature of another person or group of people by relying on clichés and stereotypes. This happens when the author fails to consider the complexities of humanity, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Think of the “wicked stepmother” in the story Cinderella (1637) as an example of an intentional stereotypical caricature. The author doesn’t give many details about her apart from her evil nature; she is a simplified character based on a stereotype. This is an effective way to communicate all readers need to know about the stepmother character in Cinderella—the story is not about her, after all, and so readers don’t need much detail.

The art of caricature can be problematic, however, when authors oversimplify people or groups of people unintentionally. This can perpetuate clichés and disappointing, predictable, or racist stereotypes, as with the depiction of Prissy in Gone With the Wind.

Authors must always remember to use the art of caricature responsibly so as not to misrepresent someone or an entire group of people.