“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift is known as a satirical work that is based on the population of Ireland during Swift’s time period.  According to Nicholas Diehl, who authored “Satire, Analogy, and Moral Philosophy,” satire is traditionally thought of as, “a literary mode with a moral purpose.”  He follows this statement by addressing that the author of the particular satire writes with, “a sense of moral vocation and with a concern for the public interest.”  Diehl uses these statements to classify satire as a genre that attempts to address a specific ethical or societal problem that appears to be affecting a community.  Diehl then makes a direct reference to Swift’s work as a prime example of a satirical piece.  The reason for this is that in his work, Swift describes the people of England’s attitudes towards the Irish’s living conditions during the 18th century.  Swift made the work satirical by proposing an obscene and darkly humorous idea in order to draw the reader’s attention to an actual real life problem that was occurring during the time period. He proposed in his piece that the Irish should begin to explore a, “fair, cheap, and easy Method" for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth."  The method that he offers includes eating 100,000 of the starving children in order to feed the rest of the population.  The reason that this is considered satirical is because through this preposterous idea of families participating in the cannibalistic activity he brings attention to the severity of the issue that was occurring in Ireland.  It is accepted that the Irish population would not succumb to eating children, however it emphasizes the desperation of the population, and the reality of the horrendous problem.  This work accomplishes its goal of being a satirical piece because it uses an unrealistic, and in many ways comical solution that includes eating children in order to draw attention to the very real problem of starvation that existed in 18th century Ireland.

Wendy Molyneux also wrote a piece entitled “I Am Sorry That I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece,” that has the characteristics of satire. Molyneaux sets the foundation of satire by repetitively making humorous statements in the hope of bringing attention to a bigger issue.  In the work she proceeds to describe the evening of a presumably teenage girl, while inserting most stereotypes that are associated with girls in this age group.  The stereotypes are the central focus throughout the entirety of the piece.  First, she makes the girl appear as overdramatic by describing how she cries over small and irrelevant problems, and eats mass amounts of ice cream in order to compensate.  She then references how girls are known to be extremely self–conscious by describing how she tries on all of her clothes, and then proceeds to cry because a single pair of pants did not fit her, which is clearly irrational.  She then drives her last and main point across with her last sentence that read, “Oh well, I would have probably been terrible at it anyway,” which signifies how women have low self-esteem, and are generally have no comedic sense.  She was addressing in this sentence how she procrastinated writing the comedy to the point where she ran out of time because it was time for her to resort to her day job of, “knitting tampon cozies, and being best friends with everybody.” These two activities represent how women do not have important jobs and are socially fake when building relationships.  This work was satirical because as Nicholas Diehl explained a satire must use an absurd situation with a nonsensical plot to bring awareness to another ethical issue that is apparent in the society.  The sarcasm in this story that makes it a satire is how Molyneaux describes this completely unrealistic night of an average women, that makes women sound like powerless imbeciles in order to make fun of a serious article written by Christopher Hitchens entitled, “Why Women Aren’t Funny,” which appeared in Vanity Fair.  This article along with stereotyping were the real – world issues that Molyneaux attempted to target through a sarcastic, comical, and impractical plot line.  It was this technique that made the work a useful and powerful satire.
