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Courtship Through The Ages 'And A Modest Proposal'

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“Courtship Through the Ages” by James Thurber an “ A Modest proposal” By Jonathan Swift are both satirical essays. However, both essays are laid out very differently and have very different points to make. One essay is phrased as a proposal and the other is more of a narrative. The two pieces also use contrasting writing techniques and even polar opposite narrators. The two essays could not be more different and yet they are still both satires.

Both pieces are told in the first person but they actually narrate very differently. Swift’s piece is posed as a proposal and therefor the essay is written more formally. The narration is quite detached and almost callous which makes the tone of the essay seem all the more disturbing on top of the …show more content…

Thurber's voice comes out throughout the essay in his conversational writing style. He voices his own opinions throughout the essay like when he talks about the male grebe; " [he] like[s] to think that the grebe always has a faint hope of drowning [the female grebe] or scaring her to death"(7). In Swift's essay on the other hand the author’s voice only comes out towards the end; When he starts to openly critique the English commonwealth and the poverty in Ireland. Swift voices his own real opinion, by giving many alternate solutions to the problems in Ireland rather than the crazy one he has suggested. He ends with saying to " let no man talk to [him] of these and the like expedients, till he has a glimpse of hope that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them in practice"(0). He is saying that even though all of these suggestions are valid that they shouldn't be bothered with because no one will ever actually bother to implement them anyway. His true voice, unlike that of the narrator openly mocks what has become of Ireland instead of doing it in a more satirical style as the narrator does. This is very different than Thurber's voice that comes out during the whole essay, but both accomplish giving their real opinions on the matter very

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