The satirical tone of T. Coraghessan Boyle's short story "Top of the Food Chain" gives the story an over-the-top feeling of hilarious allegory rather than of a tale based on real events. Dark humor aside, Boyle's story somewhat parallels the events of actual malaria-extermination programs initiated by the World Health Organization in Borneo and other countries during the 1950s and 1960s. His tone implies that cures sometimes are more dangerous than the problems they treat.
