Satire, Humor, and Shock Value in Swifts A Modest Proposal Essay

Satire, Humor, and Shock Value in Swifts A Modest design Swifts capacity to the English government in A Modest proposition deals with the disgusting deposit of the English-Irish common people. Swift, as the narrator expresses pity for the scant(p) and suppress, while maintaining his social status far above them. The poor and oppressed that he refers to are Catholics, peasants, and the poor homeless men, women, and children of the kingdom. This is what Swift is trying to befuddle the English government, in particular the Parliament aware of the great socioeconomic space between the increasing number of peasants and the aristocracy, and the effects thereof. Swift conveys his message in a brilliant essay, in which he uses satire, humor and deck value. Swift pursues his main point in the first paragraph It is a melancholy object to those who walk through Dublin . . .when they see . . .beggars of the female sex, foll owed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers rather of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to engagement all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work or urge on for the Pretender in Spain. (2181) The last statement regarding the Pretender in Spain is a stab at Catholicism, the Pretender, being the Catholic James II, claimant to the English crown. In fact, Catholics are the neverthelesst of many sardonic jokes in the essay. ... ...and hammering the objurgate social statement into the reader. Swift goes beyond just describing the socioeconomic distance between the aristocracy and the poor. He goes beyond showing the deplorable state of the countr y. Swift clearly shows the ludicrous nature of the society in which he lived, the feudal system, religious conflicts, the lack of social mobility, the aristocracy, and overpopulation. In condemning Catholics, he is condemning the Irish. In making the Irish out to be a problem that can be solved by this proposal, he shows his check of English involvement in Irish affairs, and furthermore, the expanding British Empire. Thus A Modest Proposal does not present an answer to the societal problems of its day, but ultimately raises more questions. Not questions of fact, but questions of a profound socio-philosophical nature.