A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift is a passage which preys off of satirical suggestions to help the people of Ireland out of poverty and help reduce the homeless population. Although completely joking Swift uses the argument that if the people of Ireland simply ate their babies that the hunger problem would be solved because the population continued to increase. The problem would solve itself, Swift argues, if they simply ate their own young, thus ending the population problem and solving Irish poverty. Swift presents his argument in a very logical and reasonable way, to have the effect on the reader that his logic is purely a joke intended to open the eyes of the Irish to solve the poverty problem in humane ways. Swift presents the idea of consuming children by saying that in the streets of Ireland one would see “beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children” and that these people who continue to have children without being able to provide a decent home for them can also make money from selling their infants for others to eat. His argument, a cruel hoax, is very valid in that he provides rational background to his idea and through his joke reveals real solutions to the problems ion Ireland.
The real point that Swift wishes to convey is that the problems in Ireland are not being dealt with in plausible manners and that only an idea as outrageous as eating children can wake the people of Ireland up to the problem at hand. Towards the end of the passage Swift states “Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.” The “expedients” that Swift is talking about, which he lists in the paragraph previous to this statement, are actual solutions to Irelands’ troubles such as taxing, limiting foreign luxuries, etc. The point of including actual solutions to the problem is to convey the contemptible efforts with which the people of Ireland were showing towards the issue of poverty at the time. Swift hopes that the reader will interpret these resolutions in the utmost seriousness and actually consider the arguments presented rather than actually believing his satirical argument of eating Irelands’ children to help end the poverty.
To alert the people of Ireland that the poverty was not going to be fixed without action, Swift categorizes the Irish people as being inhuman and uses diction to dehumanize the way they live and the way they handle the issue in Ireland. Swift uses language such as calling the people of Ireland “ghosts” and “souls” to show that the Irish people are not aware of the growing issues in Ireland and although he may not actually feel this way, by using this kind of language Swift hopes to make a point through his satirical calling of Irish people as “souls”. Swifts underlying purpose of calling the Irish people “bastards” and other such dehumanizing names serves as a satirical way to call the Irish people to action and anger them in a way that they wish to solve the problem. The diction in the passage goes hand in hand with the solutions Swift gives, in that the harsh names he calls the Irish people will cause the people to think about why their country is the way it is and reveals the need to follow Swifts examples and repeal the names that swift gives them throughout A Modest Proposal. Swift uses satire to shame the government in Ireland and criticize their handling of the famine.
In contemporary society many forms of satirical wordplay and images exist in the media, reading, schools and everyday events. One such event of satire is on the comedic show Saturday Night Live. SNL provides satire with a “news” report which spoofs political and actual news that is usually very controversial or having to do with the entire nation rather than a select group of people. Just as Swifts use of satire, SNL’s use of satire involves issues that reflect the country as a whole rather than a selective group of people. Another example of satire in modern media is Tosh.0, Tosh.0 is another comedic show which involves playing clips that may be controversial and providing commentary that reveals true feelings behind the videos. Just as Swifts’ argument, Tosh.0 uses satire to display videos current to today’s events and provides commentary that may be useful or cause more to be aware.
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