What is satire? Satire is a literary technique in which people's behaviors or society's institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of bringing about social reform and improving society. Satire may be gently witty, mildly abrasive, or bitterly critical, and it often uses exaggeration to force readers to see something in a more critical light. One of satire's most reliable tools is verbal irony. Satirists also use humor and parody. "A Modern Proposal" seems to contain satire. One of the parts that caught my mind was when it said: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout." I think that that part of the story is satire because it seems to be a quite bitter way of proving a point. I believe the point that it is trying to prove is that currently in that society, children are not really needed due to the burden they seem to put on their parents; therefore telling them that they can be eaten is a bitter and over exaggerated, yet "good and convenient" way to get rid of them. The story was all about the poor selling their children to the rich people and then the children being eaten by the rich people.
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June 2016
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