“I’m Sorry I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece” by Wendy Molyneux and “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift have both a satire which is a writing that uses humor, irony, and exaggeration to expose and criticize other people or ideas (Webster). Both authors have a main point to get across, and use extreme sarcasm to get their point across. They both explore very different topics, but use the same style to get their message across. Molyneux’s satire pokes fun of the way women are “supposed” to act in society and introduces multiple stereotypes of women while Swift discusses the issue of poverty in Ireland and his ideas in order to fix it. Wendy Molyneux’s “I’m Sorry I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece” and Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” both use satire to effectively get their messages across with an illegitimate idea to fix their issue, even if their issues and solutions are completely different from one another.

In “I’m Sorry I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece” by Wendy Molyneux, she discusses the stereotypical role of women in society. The satire starts out by saying she is going to write a comedy piece because there was a forum asking for more written by women. When she tries to start the comedy, she gets distracted by a woman with a child walking outside and she cries, delaying her writing. After that, she needs to cheer herself up somehow, so she tries on all of her clothes. Her continuous distractions are to point out a stereotypical habit of women in society. She cries again and again, one thing distracting her from the task after another until she finally sits down one last time to write her essay and asks herself what funny is, but realizes she has a different sense of humor than others, “I mean, I assume I have no sense of humor because all of the funny things that are made especially for women like me...don’t even make me laugh” (Molyneux 522). She says this sarcastically because she is not like the stereotypical woman, but since she does not think what they think is funny must mean that she is not funny. This is obviously not correct, as any person can have their own unique sense of humor and not every person has to think the same way. At the end of her essay, she says she has to go be a stereotypical female, “I have to go report to my regular day job knitting tampon cozies and being best friends with everybody” (Molyneux 523). The use of sarcasm in this instance is to point out that women do not have to do the stereotypical things that men typically think women would do. Of course, her fake job is exaggerated and anyone who read it would understand the sarcasm and the point being made. Molyneux uses sarcasm and exaggeration in her satire to get across the point that girls do not have to be as feminine as men tend to classify them as.

In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” he suggests a way to solve the problem of poverty in Ireland. His suggestion is to have parents sell their babies after they are born. The babies will then be cooked, sold, and eaten by others in Ireland. Doing so will give the poor more money and also help contribute to the lost food from the potato famine. He fills his proposal with evidence to back up why eating infants would be beneficial, “a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious and nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled” (Swift 515). This is clearly sarcastic, as no person would actually condone eating other humans in any circumstance. Swift goes on to convince his audience that the flesh of children would be in season that year, and even gives reasoning on how much a person might gain from selling their child, “I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child” (Swift 516). He gives this in depth analysis to further exaggerate his point in the entire proposal to give his readers a reason to think he may actually be serious in his ideas. Later on, he gives more ideas as to how the selling and killing of children can profit the country, such as selling the skin to create gloves and boots. This is all a clear exaggeration because there is no reason for this type of thing to actually happen in the real world. If it were an option, no parent would sell their child knowing it were to be killed. In conclusion, Swift uses exaggeration in his satire to prove the point that something needed to be done in order to help the poverty in the country, and his proposal is not the ideal one.

The two satires combined provide an insight to a specific reality. They both use exaggeration and sarcasm to make their issues sound as ridiculous as possible. The ridiculousness makes it obvious to the reader that there is an issue and that the proposed solution is not an actual or ideal solution. It also makes it clear that the issue discussed should be given a solution. Molyneux is currently the producer of a popular comedy television show in the United States. Her background in comedy provides insight to her satire, speaking on the stereotype of women. This is slightly ironic given that one of the networks that airs her show has been known to avoid hiring female producers. Swift was born in Ireland in the seventeenth century into poverty. His father died two months before he was born and his mother struggled to provide for him, giving a clear background on his point of view in his satire. His life revolved around poverty, so it makes sense for him to write about the issue of poverty in his country, although his points are clearly sarcastic ones. This is expressed in both of the discussed satires and is important in understanding the concept of a satire.

Wendy Molyneux’s “I’m Sorry I Didn’t Write a Comedy Piece” and Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” both use satire to effectively get their messages across with an illegitimate idea to fix their issue, even if their issues and solutions are completely different from one another. Moylneux discusses the femininity of women and how it should not be stereotyped in one way. Swift discusses the poverty issue of Ireland in that time period and suggests to sell and kill infants. 
