Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and Wendy Molyneux's "I Am Sorry That I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" were written hundreds of years apart, but they are both attempting to diagnose cultural and societal issues using satire. "A Modest Proposal" is presenting a ridiculous solution to Ireland's disturbingly large amount of children in poverty during the 1700s. Molyneux's essay is a response to an essay called "Why Women Aren't Funny." Molyneux's essay consists of stereotype after stereotype of how women are reliant on men and how emotional women are. For instance, the female narrator states that she prepared a meal in the hopes that a man would smell the food and come to her apartment. Then, she writes, "Anyway, twelve hours later after I had cooked, baked, cried, sewn a blanket for my hope chest, called a telephone psychic" (Molyneux 417). The female depicted in this essay is so emotional and dependent upon men that she stays up crying and baking in order to find a man to take care of her. Through her essay, Molyneux makes fun of people who actually believe in the stereotypes she presents. Swift and Molyneux teach us that satire, due to its detailed nature, is effective at diagnosing issues in society that no one wants to discuss. Diagnosis involves exposing issues as well as pointing out how those issues started and continue. The detailed nature allows the authors to give the reasons for those issues. However, the two essays also teach us that satire is not effective at producing viable solutions to the problems presented. 

While reading "A Modest Proposal," it is very clear that Ireland has an issue with a large amount of children in poverty. The issue is stated in the first sentence of the essay; "It is a melancholy object to those wo walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms" (Swift 409). Swift immediately points out the problem that no one wants to discuss, he then provides a satirical solution to point out that this problem does need to be solved. Swift is not actually saying that the problem should be solved the way in which he proposes, but he is pointing out that it does need to be solved. Swift writes about how the children in poverty should be 28 pounds by the time they are one year old, then he writes, "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem; to have the best title to the children" (Swift 411). The idea that Ireland would eat their own children, or better yet, give them to their landlords to eat is so ridiculous that the reader clearly understands that Ireland really does have an issue with poverty-stricken children. Also, the reader better understands why Ireland might have a poverty issue through that satirical statement: landlords taking advantage of their tenants. The detail that landlords take advantage of their tenants adds to the satirical nature of the essay, but also helps explains how poverty became an issue. 

Molyneux's style also helps clearly explain an issue in society. Molyneux's issue is sexism and she also makes it obvious in the first paragraph. She writes that the female character puts down her chocolate bar and stops crying when she sees an ad for women to submit more comedy pieces (Molyneux 416). Molyneux is pointing out that people think of all women in this manner. The last sentence of "I Am Sorry That I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" is a thought from the female character; "Oh well, I probably would have been terrible at it anyway" about the character writing a comedy (Molyneux 418). The character also states that her "regular day job" is "knitting tampon cozies and being best friends with everybody" (Molyneux 418). Molyneux is making fun of the notion that women are only good at very simple tasks that do not require any intelligence, such as knitting. After reading Molyneux's essay, it is easy to understand that there is an issue with people thinking of all women as emotional, unintelligent, and reliant on men. Like Swift, Molyneux's writing is very effective at identifying the problem. 

Satirical writing includes details that point to how the issue was started or why it continues to be a problem. Molyneux writes sarcastically, "I probably shouldn't even try to write a piece of comedy since Christopher Hitchens wrote an article in Vanity Fair saying that women just aren't funny. He's probably right" (Molyneux 417). She also writes, "Christopher Hitchens is a huge douche who runs a successful child pornography business and has an inability to get an erection unless he's reading Nazi literature" (Molyneux 417). The satirical nature of Molyneux's essay allows her to be very blunt with what she wants to say. On the surface, the detail of Christopher Hitchens writing a sexist essay about how women are not as funny as men is simply a joke, but further analysis of her joke points to the reasoning that men such as Christopher Hitchens and essays such as the one he wrote are helping spread sexism. Another detail Molyneux points out that further spreads sexism is that women act as if their only purpose is to please men. The female character says, "I tried on one pair of pants that didn't fit me anymore. And then I totally started to cry again, because I am so fat" (Molyneux 417). Molyneux is saying that women are trying to conform to how men want them to look, which is very thin. That is another diagnosis of how sexism started and why it continues. As seen through both works, the satirical style of "I Am Sorry That I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece" and "A Modest Proposal" is effective at diagnosing issues in society due to the detailed nature of the genre. 

Molyneux and Swift's satirical style also allows them to write essays on problems that nobody else wants to discuss. They take problems in society that are embarrassing, or highly debated and make them easy to think about for the reader. For example, "A Modest Proposal" makes the poverty-stricken children problem of Ireland easy to think about. Swift's essay makes it clear that something needs to be done to solve the problem, instead of the previously adopted strategy of just ignoring it. If the essay was more serious, it would be difficult to articulate the extremity of the issue and inspire readers to want to make a change. Swift's "solution" of using the children as food and clothing is offending to Ireland that there has not been a better solution presented, because everyone else just ignored the problem. A serious solution would not have such a profound effect on the reader as considering the mass cooking and eating of Ireland's children. 

Sexism is also an issue that people avoid acting on or talking about. However, Molyneux does exactly the opposite with her essay and talks about it point blank. She calls out sexist people, such as Christopher Hitchens, and talks about many different stereotypes. In a more serious essay, these stereotypes would be much more difficult to communicate than in "I Am Sorry That I Didn't Write a Comedy Piece." Even if all of these stereotypes could be worked into a single serious essay, they would not have such profound effect on the reader. Simply stating that women are expected to have simple jobs that do not require much intelligence is not nearly as profound as saying that this hypothetical prototype woman has a job "knitting tampon cozies." Satirical writing takes otherwise difficult issues to talk about and discusses them very straightforward. That is why this type of writing could be considered extremely transgressive. 

The issue with satirical style of writing is that it does not offer the reader any solutions to the problems discussed. It does not give the reader anything specifically they can do to help solve the problem. For instance, Swift does not give a real solution to the large amount of children in poverty, he simply makes the reader aware that it is a problem. His "solution" of giving up the poor children to eat is merely sarcastic in order to prove there is a problem. Molyneux does not offer a solution to sexism, she just points out the fact that it is a problem. All of her stereotypes about women and rant about sexist men do not give the reader anything to act upon. Molyneux is very good at making the reader dislike Christopher Hitchens and everything he stands for, but she never says how to get back at him. However, the lack of a solution given by the author could lead the reader to get creative and make them think of solutions of their own. These satirical essays could be very successful at solving large problems if read by the right person. If a person who is very intelligent and a good problem solver read a piece such as "A Modest Proposal" or "I Am Sorry That I Did Not Write a Comedy Piece", and got inspired, he or she could produce some very valuable solutions to these problems. 

Due to their satirical style of writing, "A Modest Proposal" and "I Am Sorry That I Did Not Write a Comedy Piece" are effective at diagnosing problems, which is pointing out problems and explaining how they started and continue. Satirical style of writing is very good at explaining how problems start and continue because the jokes and sarcasm allow the information to be very straightforward and detail oriented. Also, satirical essays tend to be about problems that society chooses to ignore, which make them transgressive. The limitation to Swift and Molyneux's style of writing is that they do not offer any real solutions to the problems they analyze, but instead leave it up to the reader to come up with solutions of their own. So, satirical pieces are very effective at making the reader aware of issues in society and possibly inspiring the reader to help solve the problem, however they do not give the reader a specific solution that they can help realize. These types of essays are the first step of problem solving, which is to realize that there is a problem and it is up to the reader to go and make solutions. 

