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Satire In A Modest Proposal

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The Morality of Irish Baby Food
It is human nature to want to believe that if you have good living conditions, the everyone else must also have good living conditions; however, if someone did not fit this ideal, then it was his or her own fault and no one else had anything to do with it. This was a common theme centuries ago, and it still a common theme today, though which particular characterizes makes someone privileged continues to change over time. In Jonathan Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal,” Swift uses the elements of satire to ridicule Irish oppressors, specifically the Catholics and the rich.
LITERARY ANALYSIS
One of the most commonly used elements of satire is irony, which Swift uses freely to show the monetary and religious …show more content…

The most significant part of this is “the projector finding a useful ally in an American savage currently residing in London, who confirms his hypothesis that young babies would make tasty and wholesome dishes for the tables of Irish gentlemen,” (Chowdhury) where Swift has included both America and England, both locations being disliked by the Irish in varying amounts. Swift is satirizing the Catholics and outside oppressors through his constant use of irony when speaking about the unnecessary number of children in Ireland, especially after the prior famines.
Swift also uses hyperbole to show the differences between the rich and poor and the Catholics and Protestants. In the first paragraph of “A Modest Proposal,” Swift exaggerates the way mothers “are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants” (1) and suggests that the only possible outcomes for these infants are to “turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes” (1). In omitting other possibilities, Swift is using hyperbole to portray the lack of options for the poor in Ireland. Moreover, he dehumanizes the children when he decides “that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, … which is more that we allow to sheep,

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