A Modest Proposal
Ironic reform suggestion
A Modest Proposal is a 1729 satirical essay by Jonathan Swift suggesting that impoverished Irish families sell their children as food to wealthy English landlords.
The essay's deadpan economic reasoning—complete with calculations about the tender flesh of infants—became the defining example of savage irony deployed against social injustice.
The title now serves as shorthand for any satirical argument that advocates something monstrous to expose real cruelty: His op-ed was a modest proposal suggesting we simply harvest organs from the homeless.
- Jonathan SwiftDublin's savage satirist
- satireMockery exposing vice
- biting satireHarsh, pointed social mockery
- SwiftMoving with great speed
- ironyMeaning opposite to words
tongue in cheek · cannibalism · poverty · Ireland · babies · famine · essay · pamphlet · eating · children · social · commentary · social critique · dark · humor · sarcasm · indignation · wit
- essaysessay, personal essay, formal essay, Self-Reliance, critical essays
- Satirical NovelsAnimal Farm, Candide, Catch-22, Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote
- Swift WorksGulliver's Travels, Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Yahoos
- satirelampoon, parody, parody account, political satire, spoof
- allegoriesallegory, fable, parable, Animal Farm, Pilgrim's Progress
- Great BooksMeditations, Leviathan, The Prince, Utopia, Walden
A Modest Proposalearnest plea
white paper · position paper · manifesto · The Federalist Papers
A Modest ProposalClarissa
Name meaning clear
muckraking journalism · Uncle Tom's Cabin · investigative report
modest, modesty, modestly, immodest, immodesty, propose, proposal, proposals, proposed