Which phrase in this excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut's "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" is an example of sarcasm? To ask how much lon
ger the professor will live is to ask how much longer we must wait for the blessings of another world war. He is of short-lived stock: his mother lived to be fifty-three, his father to be forty-nine; and the life-spans of his grandparents on both sides were of the same order. He might be expected live, then, for perhaps fifteen years more, if he can remain hidden from his enemies. When one considers the number and vigor of these enemies, however, fifteen years seems an extraordinary length of time, which might better be revised to fifteen days, hours, or minutes. The professor knows that he cannot live much longer. I say this because of the message left in my mailbox on Christmas Eve. Unsigned, typewritten on a soiled scrap of paper, the note consisted of ten sentences. The first nine of these, each a bewildering tangle of psychological jargonand references to obscure texts, made no sense to me at first reading. The tenth, unlike the rest, was simply constructed and contained no large words.
"When one considers the number and vigor of these enemies, however, fifteen years seems an extraordinary length of time, which might better be revised to fifteen days, hours, or minutes".
The sarcasm is a sharp irony, which usually denigrates the victim.
In the above passage we can notice the sarcasm. The author makes fun of the quantity and disposition of the soldiers. The sarcasm in the text suggests that soldiers are weak and insufficient to combat a single individual.
Lincoln's House Divided Speech. ... A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
