Stagolee
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STAGOLEE
Satire is word that is mostly used to criticize a persons, society, and etc. in the short story written by Julius Lester Stagolee he uses satire in the characters sheriffs, Death, the angles, and the funeral services people. He also uses satire about the government in Stagolee by talking about the military, the sheriffs, and the presidents of the United States during that time. He even uses satire on the Ku Klux Klan Alumni Association. Julius Lester made the character Stagolee, a man that no one can defeat just by using satire. He made him superior to every one even death.
The way Julius Lester used satire in the characters the sheriff, Death, the angles, and the funeral service people is by making Stagolee superior to them. With the sheriff, stagolee defeated him even though he was white and it was around the time that white people had power among the blacks. When the sheriff came to arrest him, Stagolee hit the sheriff in the head and sent him flying across the room and put three bullets in him and killed him. What makes this an example of satire is that this story is exaggerated because there were no sheriffs in a town that had so much respect for a black man nor there were no black men with such power. Another good example of satire is the way stagolee dealt with death when he came to take him away from earth because he was thirty years over due to die. Instead of stagolee going with death to hell, stagolee pulled out his 44 and the bullets whistle past deaths ear and death left in quick second. The other good example of satire is with the angles. When Stagolee was on his way to heaven he stopped in between clouds and thought the angles how to play Pitty-Pat and Coon-Can. The reason this was a good example of satire is that angles was not supposed to play such games but Stagolee came and made the brake that rule which was something out of the ordinary for an angle who fallow all the rules. The last example of satire used in the characters is the funeral service people. Every one knows that there is no funeral that will last for three days and three night for a man that was always killing someone.
Julius Lester used satire about the government in Stagolee by talking about the military, the sheriffs, and the presidents of the United States during that time. When the sheriff came to arrest Stagolee and stated ” I am placing you under the arrest for the murder of Billy of Lyons”. Stagolee turned around and said ” you and what army?” ” And it bet not be the United States Army, cause I whipped them already. Everyone knows that one man cannot have fought and whipped the United States army because that is impossible which makes it satire. Julius made Stagolee so powerful that he could defeat one of the most powerful army in the world. He showed the sheriff that he had no respect for the army that is fighting for the country that he lives in. He also showed satire when the other sheriffs did not want to go with the other sheriffs to get Stagolee because they were all scared of him and how all of them made an agreement on how they will leave each other alone. It was sad how bad they were afraid of him when Stagolee killed Billy Lyons and one of the sheriffs said ” Aint nothing wrong with killing a man every now and then”. Some of the sheriffs said to the other sheriff