Irony In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a very interesting take on how the Irish government should cure the famine that the country was then facing. However, the entire proposal was completely bizarre, and the whole point of the essay was to bring attention to the idea that they needed a solution to the all the problems they were experiencing but the proposal was definitely not it. He even had a strongly developed plan as to how his proposal would work which makes the reader feel as if he is serious about selling children, eating them, and/or using their skins as a fashion accessory; however, ultimately this proposal is not his true goal. Jonathon Swift skillfully used different styles of writing, such as imagery and irony, to show why the Irish should sell their children to the rich to eat. Swift used such great

The title alone is very ironic since it uses the word “modest” as if eating children is the most natural way to fix the problem. Another ironic piece of the proposal is when right before he proposes his thoughts of eating the children, he pronounces “I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.” By way of explanation, he is saying no one should be against the proposal, which is ironic considering what his true feelings toward the proposal actually are. One of the most compelling evidence of irony is when he states, “. . . it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes . . .” (Swift 1). This statement has lots of irony because he wants to take the children from their mothers and murder them after they’ve been born; also, he claims in that situation that the babies are innocent but the babies are still innocent after being