For every important event to happen to a nation there are always serious articles and comical articles. While the serious articles are more factual many people enjoy getting their news from places like the Colbert Report or even Saturday Night Live. People enjoy getting their information this way because it takes a very serious topic and puts a lighthearted twist on it while still addressing what is going on. Jonathon Swift and Wendy Molyneux are able to address serious problems by putting a satirical spin on it in their articles "A Modest Proposal" and "I Am Sorry I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece". The time period it was written in, the authors use of language, and how they go about addressing the problem help the reader understand what they as authors want to say without having to confront the problem head on. 

In order for satire to come across right it is all about how the author uses words. If a satire is not conveyed in the right tone it is very easy for it to mean something completely different then the author originally intended. Swift uses satire in a subtle way. If one were to read his "Modest Proposal" they might take Swift as being serious about his proposal to eat the babies in order to solve the over population in Ireland. While in Molyneux's article "I Am Sorry I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" it is easy to tell that she is writing this piece to mock Christopher Hitchens article in Vanity Fair, in which he claims that women cannot be funny. The reason for Swift's piece to come of as serious as it does is because of the language he uses. The opening sentence of his proposal is, "for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from becoming a burden on their parents or country, and for making it beneficial to the publick" (Swift 409). Throughout the first couple of paragraphs the reader can still find Swift's proposal to be legitimate it is not until he states that his plan is to eat the infants of beggars that it becomes clear that he is writing a satirical piece. Even then it can still come across as being serious to some people because Swift keeps a very serious tone throughout the piece and makes a very convincing argument as to why the poor should give up their babies and why the rich should eat them. It is not until the end of the article that Swift tells the reader that he is not actually interested in eating children.  At the end he says "I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work" (Swift 415). 

Swift's piece takes a lot of thought to be able to decipher what he is trying to get at while Molyneux's article is very easy to follow and know what she is trying to say. 

Although the title suggests that Molyneux is not writing a comical piece it becomes clear within the first couple of sentences that she is poking fun at the reasons why men do not think that women are funny. This article is a clear satire because she takes the stereotypes of women to the extremes in one sentence she says "anyway, twelve hours later after I had cooked, baked, cried, sewn a blanket for my hope chest, called a telephone psychic, had all of my favorite Cathy comic strips laminated, and then stayed up all night trying on all of my clothes and shoes again, I finally felt ready to write my comedy piece" (Molyneux 417). Throughout the article she keeps reminding the reader how she does not have time to write the comedy piece because she is too busy doing household chores or trying on her clothes (Molyneux 417). By claiming she was not writing a comedy piece she wrote a comedy piece. Her style of writing is a lot more relatable to the reader throughout because of the language she uses. Molyneux uses lighthearted sarcasm and is making fun of her self in a sense. The different time periods that the pieces were written in effected the way that the authors used satire in their writing. Her language throughout the article is very laid back and informal. For example, at one point in the article she says that she has "to go report to my regular day job of knitting a tampon cozies and being best friends with everybody" (Molyneux 418). In comparison, Swift's sarcasm is very harsh and can isolate people due to the harsh nature of what he is proposing. The contrast in the time periods that the two pieces were written in has a lot to do with the language they chose.

"A Modest Proposal" was written in the 1700 while "I Am Sorry I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" was written in 2009. Swift's style of writing was very uncommon back in the 1700's. In his writing he has a very sardonic tone which is more common in todays writing. People in his time were not used to reading the type of articles that Swift produced. This can have a bigger shock factor on the readers than it has in todays culture.  "I Am Sorry I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" was written in modern day where people are used to reading satirical pieces. Swift had to take a formal approach to his article in order for it to be taken somewhat seriously and to be respected by the public but Molyneux could take a more laid back approach to hers because of the culture we live in today. In todays culture you can criticize or make fun of political events without a huge backlash. In the 1700's there were many more rules on what you could and could not say especially when it came to speaking out against the government. Swift had to get creative in the way he went about talking about the over population problem.  While both pieces were written in separate time periods they are both trying to achieve the same thing. When Molyneux was writing her piece in 2009 the feminism movement was starting up again and with that came many negative connotations with the word. Many people think of feminists as being man haters or the extreme bra burning type. In order to address it without coming off too harsh she had to take a lighthearted stance on the subject. If it were the 60's or 70's she may have been able to take a different approach to writing her piece but in 2009 she had to take the social climate into consideration. Even though these pieces were written in different time periods the effect is still not lost however. Satiric pieces are still effective in todays culture because of their ability to address problems that are hard to talk about in everyday life. 

Both articles are addressing much bigger problems then it seems and they are able to do that because of their use of satire. "A Modest Proposal" addresses the problem of over population in Ireland in the 1700's and "I Am Sorry I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece", addresses feminism concerns in modern day. The use of satire can both help an author get their point across or hurt them. For example, Swift runs the risk of ostracizing the poor population because his solution is eating their children. While Molyneux may offend anybody with the traditional views of gender she is not offending huge part of the population in 2009. In Ireland in the 1700's an overwhelming portion of the population was poor (Swift 409). In order to address this fact and to show Ireland's indifference to this problem he proposes the outrageous solution that is eating the half of the children (Swift 409). He is able to validate his claim by stating that this solution would greatly reduce the population, the poor citizens will have something to make money off of, the nations economy will be better, it will give the poor people a reason to have more kids, it will bring more costumers to taverns, and it would increase marriages (Swift 413). While all of the points are valid they also make it easier to have a debate on what they should do because it is now easier to think of more logical solutions to the overpopulation problem now that you have the most absurd one off of the table. It makes people think about what is going on and how they would fix it. Feminism has been a hot button topic recently and Molyneux found a way to speak about it in a manner that did not come across as being feminist at first. She disguises the feminist elements by mentioning all of the stereotypes women are known for making it seem more of a comedy piece than an article addressing a hot button topic. Molyneux's opening line is "the other day while sounding out the words on a Web site called The Rumpus, I saw this article asking for women to submit more comedy pieces. So I put down my giant chocolate bar, stopped crying, and thought, yes, that is what I will do" (Molyneux 416). In just the first line she addresses some of the ideas men have about women. Some men believe that women are uneducated and they are emotional and with the emotion comes the binge eating of sweets. She went about addressing feminism in a different way then most people. There are many articles about feminism but many of them come off as offensive and man hating which is why the word feminist has such a negative connotation. This article shows feminism in a different light it and allows people to form their own opinion on what feminism is. The author is making fun of herself and women everywhere by talking about how women are supposed to be. Yet at the same time she is saying that women are not like that nor should they be expected to act in that way. By addressing these controversial topics in a humorous way Swift and Molyneux are able to get a conversation going about overpopulation and feminism without actually talking about them directly in their articles. 

"A Modest Proposal" and "I Am Sorry I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" were written hundreds of years apart but they were both able to use satire in order to get a larger message across. This shows that satire is an effective style of writing if Swift's "Modest Proposal" was able to last over 300 years and for people to still find his proposal just as outrageous and funny as people did in the 1700's. Molyneux was able to address an issue that is still being debated about today and make it more relatable to the mass population. Without the authors clever use of language people may never have thought about the topics of feminism and overpopulation any differently. 

