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Satire In A Modest Proposal

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Based on what you know about Swift and the internal evidence in "A Modest Proposal," how can you tell that the "proposal" in the essay is in fact the opposite of what the words themselves suggest? (10 Point) Swift’s use of obvious satire makes the reader infer what he is saying, is not as is actually implied. His use of satire when proposing the plan to save the town of the burdensome children, and overpopulation only helps further explain this is not one of his true thoughts. When he writes “....the poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own” he is saying they have nothing as valuable as the carcasses of the babies, which were viewed as a semi-renewable resource. Prompt C: In which of Alexander Pope's works does he twist the …show more content…

How do these satires compare to popular satires of today? Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift’s story use satire to elaborate the difference between true and obviously false. Without the use of satire there would be a difficulty distinguishing whether it's supposed to be funny. Pope uses satire in a way personifying inanimate objects, such as the hair. Pope uses satire to show that the punishment does not always match the crime. Swift uses satire to show how an idea which he created, is actually a sarcastic way of joking about a big problem in society. They both use satire to present how people take things out of proportion. Swift uses the satire to make the reader comprehend that he is not serious, compared to Pope using it to show how people will make the punishment as seen fit. Swift’s “Modest Proposal” is more effective in explaining what is happening because the topic of overpopulation and hunger is relatable to what is going on in the world. Pope’s seems to be a very distant topic, because no one goes and steals hair and is forced to die for it. Without the satire that both used it would be an uninteresting story. It would be difficult to decipher if the story was supposed to be funny, serious, or

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