Essay Questions

What out-of-time literary technique is the dominant mode of the story “The Errors of Santa Claus” and how it is applied?

Leacock’s staple is satirical humor. He is capable of applying satire as sharp as a knife as well as holding back and underplaying the technique to the point where it is actually difficult to tell whether he is writing satire or not. Though often confused, irony is not necessarily the same as satire and “The Errors of Santa Claus” is a perfect example of the difference. Although one could locate a satirical point to the story, it is really constructed upon a solid foundation of irony which runs so deep that it seems much more like something which would have been written in 2018 rather than a century earlier. Except for a few of the specific gift items mentioned—toy train and Jew’s harp—everything about this story could quite easily be updated one-hundred years into the future.

The irony permeates throughout, from the dads taking giddy pleasure in playing with their sons’ toys to the sons’ revealing a maturity beyond parental expectations by being more interested in cigarettes than a train set. The narrative sets up the climax dripping with ironic notably lacking in obvious satire: Santa’s error is to mix up the presents, but even so the expectation that everyone will be playing with the same gifts they were interested in throughout wind up fulfilled.

“The Cave-Man as He is” is an example of Leacock’s satire being dulled for the purpose of understatement. What is being satirized in this story?

Although one might well single this story out as a being rather sharp in its satirical attack against the influence of the feminine on patriarchal society, the details of the attack are actually quite understated. It is not really the Cave-man’s wife who falls under the poison of Leacock’s pen, but the Cave-man himself. The understate quality of the satire reaches its climax with the narrator’s closing reply to the title character’s query about whether the narrator got the information he wanted: how his word and the modern world compare and contrast. The narrator’s ambiguous “I have already the notes I want!” is only clarified by the portrayal of the Cave-man’s marriage being the agency of his surprisingly wimpy personality.

What exactly is the conjurer’s revenge in the story bearing that title?

“The Conjurer’s Revenge” is a bit—just a little bit—like that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry acts out the stand-up comedian’s fantasy of getting even with a heckler. This is a very short story about the consequences of heckling except that instead of interrupting comic timing, a member of the audience at a magic show proceeds to ruin the magician’s act with multiple suggestions spoken out loud that the conjuror must have had something up his sleeve. The revenge is even sweeter for the conjuror than for Jerry Seinfeld—who only received the pleasure of watching his heckler’s pinky toe get cut off (it was later reattached.)

The magician proceeds to invite the heckler to take part in his next act by asking to use a number of the man’s personal object. Significant to the climax is that each request is preceded by a polite query asking for permission to use the man’s gold watch, silk hat, collar and glasses so that after he has proceeded to destroy them all he is able to engage the entire audience as witnesses: “You will observe that I have, with this gentleman's permission, broken his watch, burnt his collar, smashed his spectacles, and danced on his hat” before proceeding to exit without revealing the destruction was mere illusion in an act of very sweet revenge.