Johnathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal is an essay addressing the issues of Ireland, and how to fix them, written in a satirical way. This essay explains Ireland's problems and hardships, and then goes on to explain solutions to them, such as selling and eating infants for food. That is an extreme exaggeration to grab the attention of people that can do something about the hardships going on in Ireland. Johnathon Swift is trying to achieve and reform the way the English treated the Irish during this time. In this time period, the English did all sorts of horrible things to the Irish, for example, the English did horrific things such as starving them, and giving the Irish little to no way to make enough money to get by. Swift’s purpose is to write this essay using the literary device called satire, and wake up the people living in Ireland, and the people in England to finally make them see all of the corruption and poverty they have brought upon the Irish, hoping the English reconsidered their ways and changed the horrible ways they treated the Irish.
    One example of this essay being satirical is when Swift starts to reverse what should happen normally, hoping that the English change the ways they treat the Irish easier. Swift’s idea was that the skin of the children would be amazing materials to use to make clothing for people in Ireland. Swift writes, “Those who are more thrifty (as I confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen,” (94). Swift proposes to use the skin of children for clothes and not animal skin because it is the opposite of what should be going on, and to let the people in England reading this really realize how bad it is in Ireland, because they have a hard time even getting the most simple of daily items, such as clothing. This quote can be identified as reversal, because Swift is telling the reader the reverse of what should happen normally in their day to day life.
    Another example of this essay being satirical is when Swift starts to talk about his points being completely obvious and having many advantages. Doing this, Swift hopes that the English will realize that some people really think this way and are suffering so much that someone would go to the length to write this. Swift shows: “I think that the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many as well as of the highest importance,” (140). Swift says his proposal has many obvious advantages, and that they are of the highest importance, but in reality, the advantages are not that obvious or of highest importance. This quote can be identified as exaggeration, because he is saying that his points are much bigger and more important than they actually are.
    The last example of this essay being satirical is when Swift begins to make absurd points about what people should do at a wedding, and at christening. Swift points out, “Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for infants' flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly weddings and christenings…,” (182). This quote is telling us that thousands of families would go buy infants’ flesh like its a normal thing, and that people at weddings or christenings would also participate in eating them. This is absurd because Swift is talking about eating babies, and at at a wedding, an event he picked out, people are celebrating a couple who are likely to be thinking about having a baby themselves, and at a christening people celebrate a baby, which the English people also participate in. Swift wrote this quote because the English do all of these traditions, and they would realize how crazy these ideas sound to do, hopefully realizing what they have been putting the Irish through. This quote can be identified as incongruity, because Swift is bringing things up that are absurd and out of place in relation to their surroundings.
Swift’s goal is to wake up the people living in England and in Ireland, and make them see the poverty and corruption going on in Ireland brought upon by England, by using the literary device called satire, in hopes of changing the brutal ways the English treat the Irish. Swift wanted the people of England to realize what they have been doing to the people in Ireland, and put in solutions to the problems they have caused, freeing the Irish from living in corruption. Swift used reversal to tell the English the opposite of what should happen, explaining the solutions he had come up with, exaggeration to get his point across that the problems in Ireland are serious, and incongruity to describe absurd solutions to the hardships in Ireland. Comparing the hardships in Ireland to the social life that people live in today, if Swift were to write this in the twenty-first century he would have never been heard. Politically, even today, countries all around the world still provide little to no aid to their people, making them live in poverty even after all these years. One country in particular, is Africa. Africa is one of the poorest countries in the world right now, and thousands of people are starving there, just like people used to be starving in Ireland. Now, however, other countries have in fact changed and do provide homes and aid the homeless, improving their day to day life, making them live much better lives then the Irish did.