"The Woman Question" and Other Short Writings Literary Elements

Humorous non-fiction and fiction

The setting of Leacock’s writing varies quite widely in terms of place, so it is easier to identify setting within social milieu which was the English-speaking societies across the world from the late 19th century into the early 20th century.

The narrator of the typical piece by Leacock is generally from the first-person perspective of a highly ironic, deceptively sardonic social critic taking aim at everyday human foibles in comic manner.

The tone of Leacock’s writing is almost always much lighter than the mood. While the delivery of his humorous observations tend to be good-natured, this is often merely a disguise for a more deep-seated and often much darker cynical attitude.

The protagonist is almost always a mouthpiece for Leacock’s own persona opinions and attitudes, but this can become confusing because he so often uses an ironic narrative voice that is actually voicing the exact opposite of the writer’s real viewpoint. The antagonist is rarely any specific person, but rather a symbol of what Leacock has deemed injurious to society or just plain common sense.

There are not really any major conflicts in Leacock’s writing. What his piece lack in qualitative conflict they more than make up for quantitative conflict as the author pits his satirical pen against villains that include barbers, millionaires, the great men of literature and history, self-made men, and uninformed literary critics, among many, many others.

The climax of “Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen” is nothing less than one of the greatest in literature: “Gertrude and Ronald were wed. Their happiness was complete. Need we say more? Yes, only this. The Earl was killed in the hunting-field a few days after. The Countess was struck by lightning. The two children fell down a well. Thus the happiness of Gertrude and Ronald was complete.”

The opening paragraph of “Borrowing a Match” foreshadows what is literally going to occupy every succeeding paragraph as the assertion made is taken to the most extreme levels of the absurd: “You might think that borrowing a match upon the street is a simple thing. But any man who has ever tried it will assure you that it is not”

Leacock offers incredibly useful advice to those wishing to make a killing in real estate using the power of understatement: Select a piece of ground anywhere close to a large city, and lying in the direction in which the city is about to grow. Avoid land where the city is not going to grow. In buying the land, be careful to pay for it only a very small sum.”

“Maddened by Mystery: or, The Great Detective” is a story that is entirely a satirical allusion to Sherlock Holmes.

Leacock is a master of ironic imagery utilized for the purpose of making a satirical point. For example, “The Woman Question” seems straightforward enough as the typical rant of a conservative (like Leacock) against feminism, but his use of ironic imagery definitely brings that assumption into question: “The whole thing is mere fiction. It is quite impossible for women, — the average and ordinary women, — to go in for having a career. Nature has forbidden it. The average woman must necessarily have, — I can only give the figures roughly, — about three and a quarter children.”

The entire structure of much of Leacock's non-fiction is based on the paradox of his narrator assertively making a statement expressing a perspective with which the author is in complete disagreement.

The opening paragraph of “My Financial Career” is just one example of a recurring fancy Leacock has for commencing short pieces with parallel construction: “When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me; the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me; everything rattles me.”

Throughout the writings of Leacock, on multiple occasions within a multitude of stories, “Canada” is used quite liberally to refer to a broad range of aspects related to that country, one which the author called home.

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