Humour can take many different forms. Many people are aware of the blatant humor of slapstick, but it takes a sharper mind to notice the subtle details of sarcasm or satire. In A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift managed to create a piece of literature addressing the flaws of Irish culture while integrating it into a humorous essay. Swift's satire allows the gravity of the Irish situation to be exploited under the guise of a proposition of economic advantage. The essay, A Modest Proposal, is a proposal to end Ireland's economic dilemma by selling the children of the poor, at the age of one, for food. The narrator states: “I think all parties agree that this prodigious number of children in the arms, on the backs or at the heels of their mothers, and often their fathers, are in the present deplorable state. kingdom a very great additional grievance” (Swift). According to this proposal, by selling the children to the rich Irish to feed them, many problems would be solved. Poor mothers will earn money to live on and not have to raise their children, the rich will have a new source of meat and "an increase in their own popularity among their tenants" (Sparknotes), and the economy will grow. will improve thanks to all this. market action. In the narrator's eyes, this proposal amounts to an overall victory for the Irish people and he sees no objection to his plan. This essay will be of no value unless the reader understands that Swift wrote this essay as satire, humor that shows the weakness or bad qualities of a person, government, or society (Satire ). Even the title A Modest Proposal is satirical. Swift proposes using children simply as a source of meat, and an outrageous thought, but calls his proposal...... middle of paper ....... Np, July 2007. Web. December 30, 2013. .Mortensen, Matt. “Literary analysis, a modest proposal from Jonathan Swift.” Humanities: every subject, every angle 360. Np, April 30, 2007. Web. November 30, 2013. “Satire.” Merriam Webster. Merriam-Webster, nd Web. November 28, 2013..SparkNotes Publishers. “SparkNote on a modest proposal. » SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. nd. Internet. November 30, 2013. Swift, Jonathan. A modest proposal to prevent the children of the poor in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or their country, and to make them beneficial to the public. Nd TS. Fast, "" Web. November 30. 2013. .