This project was created by Brad Mandeville, MC'98, as an assignment for CLAS240 Ancient Societies: The City,
which he took under Prof. Tom Sienkewicz at Monmouth College during the fall semester of 1997. Brad
acknowledges his debts to the Roman satirist Juvenal. If you have any questions about this material, please contact
Tom Sienkewicz at toms@monm.edu
The Making of Naper-Thrill
This project is an attempt at a modern-day satire about the town in which I live, Naperville. I
grabbed the idea when our class was told about how a former student took his home town of
Galesburg, and wrote an award-winning satire describing the city. Naperville combined with its
share of superficial yuppies and over-protective parents seemed to be the absolute perfect setting
for a satire writing, almost too good to be true. Since I have lived in Naperville almost all of my
life, I had a very firm grasp on what I wanted to write, and exactly the kind of sarcastic
impression that I wanted to get across to the reader. However, I feel to truly understand what I
am talking about, and where I draw my conclusions, one would most likely have to live in
Naperville for a certain period of time, as they would have to understand how a foreign culture in
another country operates.
In preparing to write this satire of the city of Naperville, I first made a list of all the things that I
felt made Naperville truly unique, (most of which were humorous), and took the ideas, one by
one, and incorporated them into a creative writing. I focused most directly upon the ironic points
of Naperville, namely, the government structure (mayor), the adult citizens of Naperville, the
police department, and the subject that I first-hand knew the best, the notorious youth of
Naperville. Having come into contact with and observed each of these separate entities of
Naperville, really for my whole life, I got a strong sense about what makes each of these factions
tick. This combined with careful study of the form and information offered in Juvenal's satires,
along with factual information off of the internet, mainly consisting of Naperville's home page, I
was able to put together a satire that accurately discusses real life in Naperville, with a humorous
and sarcastic twist.
The way I used my bibliographical materials within my satire, was first to start with viewing
various satires from the works of Juvenal. Once I got a feel for what kind of mixed attitude and
emotion that a satire actually entails, I combined factual information off of the internet, along
with my own personal experiences and thoughts to put together a unique type of writing. This
really wasn't a topic that required a whole lot of research on my part, mainly because I have lived
in Naperville forever, but the information that I did pull from the internet was helpful, and did
help me focus on each topic more clearly.
I believe this project will be truly unique from any other project that you receive. I wrote this,
with a thought in mind, that if someone else also decided to write a satire about his/her home
town, it would be nothing like the one I wrote. Like Juvenal's satires, I did capitalize each first
letter of each beginning line, whether it was a new sentence or not, and tried to make a large
indent for the first line of a new subject, (for the first couple topics), similar to the way Juvenal
started off his "Satire III." The attitude and the reputation of Naperville itself perfectly sets the
stage for a satire and offers many different topics/aspects that can be perfectly translated into a
satire writing. To be honest, the satire of Naperville practically wrote itself. I really do hope that
everybody who reads this does enjoy it, because I had a great time writing it. Enjoy!