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Analysis Of Jonathan Smith's A Modest Proposal

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In the essay “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Smith challenges the status quo of the time and place in which it was written by the subject of his story. In this time period, 1729, Ireland was very plagued. Even though Ireland and England were joined together they still disagreed on a lot. There were a lot of struggles in the time period, such as, political, economical and religious. Most of the population was Roman Catholic, because of this they didn't agree on a lot of things. Most families were hit with poverty and the government became a joke to a lot of people. One of the most important sources of wealth was the cattle market so that is where everyone spent their money. Smith uses quite a bit of satire and sarcasm throughout the story. The first part of the story is mostly satire. He explains how they should take children away at birth from the parents that can't afford them. He believes if you take these children away they won't be such a burden to the parents who have a job and need to work. He states that keeping these children from being raised up poor will make them more well …show more content…

In my opinion, this is one of the worst yet funniest thing he talks about in the whole story. He thinks that eating them as newborns would be better than after they got older. He states as they get older the more dirty and fat they get. At the beginning it seemed like it could be a little more realistic but once it got to this part it completely changed. I couldn't take the story serious anymore after this part. Now that i understand satire a little more it will be much easier to use and to notice when other people use it. “A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be a very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter” ( paragraph 10, page

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