The Devil’s Dictionary · Chapter
T explained
This chapter presents cynical definitions for words beginning with 'T', including 'Tights', 'Tomb', 'Tope', 'Tortoise', 'Tree', 'Trial', 'Table d'Hôte', 'Tail', 'Take', 'Talk', 'Tariff', 'Technicality', 'Tedium', 'Teetotaler', 'Telephone',
What happens
This chapter presents cynical definitions for words beginning with 'T', including 'Tights', 'Tomb', 'Tope', 'Tortoise', 'Tree', 'Trial', 'Table d'Hôte', 'Tail', 'Take', 'Talk', 'Tariff', 'Technicality', 'Tedium', 'Teetotaler', 'Telephone', 'Telescope', and 'Tenacity'. The entries satirize human behavior, religion, politics, and social norms, often with dark humor and moral critique.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy and Duplicity
The definition of 'Trial' satirizes the legal system as a means to affirm the blamelessness of judges and jurors at the expense of the accused.
Human Folly and Self-Deception
Entries like 'Tights' and 'Telescope' mock human vanity and the tendency to be plagued by trivialities.
Politics and Power
The poem under 'Tariff' satirizes political parties and tariff policy, while 'Tenacity' comments on political greed.
War and Violence
The entry on 'Tope' links heavy drinking to military success and colonial domination.
Characters to notice
- Old Paunchinello
Appears in the poem under 'Table d'Hôte', freshly wed and greedily eating.
- Father Gassalasca Jape
Cited as a high authority on the derivation of 'Tedium'.
- Morryster
Quoted in the entry for 'Tree', describing the Ghogo tree.
- Unknown
The narrator of the definitions, providing commentary and verse.
Key passages
“Tights An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.”
Tights are a stage costume meant to boost the press agent's hype with extra attention.
Satirizes the role of publicity in theater.
“Tomb The House of Indifference.”
A tomb is a dwelling of apathy.
Cynical view of death and burial.
“Tope To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of civilization and power.”
Drinking is frowned upon in individuals, but nations that drink heavily lead in civilization and power.
Critique of hypocrisy in moral standards.
“Tree A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all.”
Trees were meant for hanging people, but most don't bear that fruit.
Dark humor about lynching and justice.
“Trial A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.”
A trial is a proceeding to show that the legal officials are innocent.
Satire of the legal system's self-serving nature.