Sam Carignan

Comic Spirit Modern Family

3/30/12

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In the hit series Modern Family

Samuel Carignan

Comic Spirit: “A Modest Proposal Analysis”

How to Teach an Ignorant Country

In “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, he uses situational irony, satirical humor and methods of convincing an audience to convey a solution that is not to be taken literally.  These tools are what help emphasize the meaning of the proposal.

                Situational irony is the first device used to convey the meaning of “A Modest Proposal” to the people of Ireland.  One example is how the author describes the town that he lives in.  “Who walk through this great town” is ironic because the town that he lives in is actually poverty ridden and overall disgusting, not great in even the slightest degree.  Also, Swift believes that if anyone is able to come up with a solution should “have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation”.  This is ironic because such a person that suggests eating babies should be punished not praised.  Finally, the author says that the consumption of infants will be beneficial.  He says that “it will prevent those voluntary abortions and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children.”  Ironically, this could not be ethnically beneficial despite what the author says. 

                Satirical humor is also present within the passage.  It is first shown when Swift says “they have already devoured most of the parents, so they seem to have the best title to the children”.  The previous quote describes the treatment of the landlords to their poorer countrymen.  This is satirical humor because it is meant to be funny, but is not found humorous because it is so disgusting that most people are shocked instead of humored by the author’s reference.     

By seeing the interactions between Isabel and her parents, the boyfriend provides a specific point of view of the altercation by using exaggerated characterization to show that the characters are viewed as abnormal. When Isabel first sees her parents, she knows exactly what they will be talking about an just how embarrassing they will be. This is shown when she says “he'll just get flustered because he'll just have dropped it in a bin by mistake.” This later is shown to be true in the novel and it caused Isabel to be embarrassed. Her embarrassment is shown when she tries to avoid her parents. She remains unseen for the moment, but “Isabel smiled feebly, turned a beetroot shade and repeated in panicked diction”. Finally, the way that her mother talks to her shows how abnormal the family is. When commenting on Isabel's dress, she says “pity you don't have more cleavage for it, but that's your fathers fault.” This is viewed as abnormal because most people do not talk about their daughter like that in front of her boyfriend, and even more uncommonly blame it on her husband. The characterization of Isabel's abnormal father, mother and herself by the boyfriend provides a unique point of view because he is a third party and is unaffected by past events.