Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal In his lengthy literary career, Jonathan Swift wrote many stories that used a broad range of voices that were used to make some compelling personal statements. For example, Swifts, A Modest Proposal, is often heralded as his best use of both sarcasm and irony. Yet taking into account the persona of Swift, as well as the period in which it was written, one can prove that through that same use …

…author, must be read with both some literary awe and criticism. One can spend many hours trying to analyze the words, the sentences and even entire paragraphs to find a deeper hidden meaning in this story. Yet, this story should be viewed as a fictional work and as one of the best demonstrations of dual sarcasm and irony combined. Anything beyond that would be purely hypothetical and would distract from the purity of this story.