How Does Swift Use Satire In A Modest Proposal

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“A Modest Proposal” by Johnathan Swift is very much what you think of when you read the title. It is a proposal, offering a suggested course of action, influenced by the landscape of the proposal’s environment and timeline. Swift wrote this proposal during the age of Enlightenment. In a nutshell, the Enlightenment valued reason over emotion. That any question that was not philosophical could be answered by science. In Swift’s homeland, Ireland, which was stricken by poverty, famine, and overpopulation especially in the capital of Ireland. Swift directed this proposal to change the turmoil that his country was in. Using elements of the Enlightenment, Swift incorporates satire and logic to make an effective proposal. In the beginning of the …show more content…

315) It is evident that Ireland is struggling with overpopulation, famine, and poverty, just based on that one sentence. Swift uses satire in his proposal to grasp the people of Ireland’s attention. The just of the proposal mentions the idea of eating babies to provide income for the “breeders” (Swift, pg. 319), meat for the wealthy (Swift, pg. 317), and surplus for the nation altogether (Swift, pg. 320). Meanwhile, the satire used in Swift’s proposal is not to be taken literally but to foreshadow the issues causing the turmoil. “I desire the reader will observe that I calculate my remedy for this one individual kingdom of Ireland, and for no other…Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: of using neither clothes nor

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