Write a 1.5 page memorandum Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Write a 1.5 page memorandum - Essay Example Each author employs, in his own right, extremely ridiculous scenarios and/or ironic character development which ultimately serves to belittle and criticize the society in and about which they were written, in this case early 18th century Britain. In A Modest Proposal, Swift, in order to criticize and make public the English crown’s shameful policy and practices towards Ireland, employs irony. So as to address the rampant and widespread poverty of Ireland, he sagaciously proposes that England ought to begin eating the children of mendicant women so as to alleviate the need to feed them. That is, Swift declares that cannibalism is the answer to solving poverty. â€Å"....[A] young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout† (Swift 1949, p. 883). Swift is counting on the reader to be so disgusted by the idea that he/she will find solace in the criticism he makes of the English landed gentry, which is in fact the true intent of the work. He writes, â€Å"I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they ha ve already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children† (Swift 1949, p. 883). The proposal is ridiculous only to make a point: the aristocrats, having exploited the poor, would not mind also enjoying the â€Å"benefit† of their offspring. In similar fashion, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera employs satire for the purpose of social criticism. Opera, for the most part, has traditionally been the preserve of the well-to-do. Gay, knowing that his audience would include many members of the upper classes, creates characters and settings which highlight the abject poverty in which much of England’s poor lived. It opens with the narrator, intentionally chosen to be a beggar, stating â€Å"If