If someone is a satirical portrait of their society..... what does that mean?

Question

anonymous · Answer

It means their characteristics are exaggerated to parody their society's typical attitudes/habits.
Basically they are almost stereotyped to represent their culture.

A good example of this is the American couple H. Lowe Crosby and Hazel Crosby from Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle'. Hazel is xenophobic and unwilling to accept other people if they are different, but she enthusiastically embraces the main character right away just because she's from the same state as she is. Lowe has moved his bicycle business to a foreign country with lenient labor laws so he can get away with treating his workers poorly, yet he supports killing anyone who commits a crime. These characters satirically portray the tendency of American society to be judgemental, selfish, cruel, and hypocritical.