The Shriek: A Satirical Burlesque — Inside the Classic

The Heroine's 'Boyish' Training

Verbeena Mayonnaise is introduced not through her own actions but through others' commentary. Lady Speedway calls her a 'flapper' and 'absurd chit,' while the narrative later reveals that Verbeena's past includes 'swimmin’, rowin’, ridin’, boxin’, runnin’, fightin’, wrestlin’.' This list, rendered in colloquial contractions, parodies the athletic competence of the original heroine. When captured by the Sheik, Verbeena reflects that her 'good, stiff boyish training' has prepared her for the crisis—a line that undercuts the original's earnest self-reliance by making it sound like a schoolgirl's boast. The parody consistently deflates heroic moments by juxtaposing them with mundane details: Verbeena 'conjured up the long, sad face of Lord Tawdry with its sable curtains' as a source of gratitude, mixing romantic cliché with comic bathos.

The Sheik's Comic Grandeur

The Sheik Amut Ben Butler introduces himself with a string of grandiose titles—'Grand Monarch, the Monseigneur of this entire sand-patch'—then undercuts them by demanding his listener 'put that in a cigarette paper and smoke it.' His name itself is a joke, combining a Turkish title with a common American surname. His speech is peppered with anachronistic slang ('cutey,' 'grass-cutter') and absurd threats ('I’ll get up to you'). When Verbeena accuses him of kidnapping for ransom, he retorts that he paid 'eighty-six cents American cash' for her—a deflation of the original's exotic abduction. The Sheik's list of previous captives—'Ayah and Beeyah, Ceeyah and Deeyah'—parodies the serial romance of the source material by turning it into a comic alphabet. His laughter, described as 'ingrainedly and corruscatedly ironic,' is a verbal flourish that mocks the original's intense emotional scenes.

Language as Weapon and Joke

The novel's primary technique is lexical inflation. Lady Speedway's speeches are dense with words like 'expatiation,' 'ratiocinations,' and 'insolubly idiotic,' which serve no narrative purpose except to mock the original's pretension. The narrator frequently inserts parenthetical asides ('Mind you,' 'I hope you observe') that break the fourth wall and undermine any suspense. Dialogue is punctuated by stage directions: 'He gave her a look that was awful sneery.' The parody also targets the original's exoticism by replacing desert mystique with mundane details—the Sheik's turban, a 'brand new, very natty turban' that Verbeena mentions, or the 'cigarette stained' fingers. Even the setting, 'the verge of the tawny Sahara,' is undercut by the Hotel Biscuit, a name that suggests a cookie rather than a grand resort.

Structure and Pacing of the Parody

The excerpts suggest a rapid alternation between dialogue and narrative summary. Chapter I is almost entirely dialogue, with Lady Speedway's monologue dominating. By Chapter VIII, the narrative shifts to Verbeena's internal thoughts, but these are rendered in a breathless, exclamatory style ('O, golly, golly me!'). The parody does not build tension in the conventional sense; instead, it piles on comic details. The Sheik's revelation that he has had many previous captives is delivered as a list, not a dramatic confession. The book's short chapters (fourteen in total) and the author's own illustrations (mentioned in the title page) suggest a fast-paced, visually playful text. Readers should expect the humor to come from incongruity—between high-flown language and low subject matter, between romantic convention and absurdist detail—rather than from plot development.

Approach The Shriek as a contemporary parody that assumes familiarity with E.M. Hull's The Sheik. The humor depends on recognizing the original's tropes—the abduction, the desert setting, the heroine's defiance—and seeing them exaggerated. The book does not aim for coherence; its pleasure lies in the verbal acrobatics and the sheer density of jokes. Read for the language, not the story.

The rain kept me indoors with The Shriek, its gaudy jabs at desert romance ticking along like a clock. Verbeena’s absurd bravado made me laugh, but something quieter lingered. That unspoken tenderness beneath the parody reminded me of another book’s delicate machinery. Later, I found myself pulling down The Incubator Baby — Text and Context, almost without deciding to. Both dealt in fragile beginnings, though one wore a mask of laughter.