Humor, irony and satire are technically distinct elements of literature. They are used in different ways with different purposes. The literary works have different modes. Each of them evokes different kind of fun and sense of pleasure. Satire is the general term, which often emphasizes the weakness more than the weak person, and usually implies moral judgment and corrective purpose Swift's satire of human pettiness and bestiality. Irony, sarcasm and satire indicate mockery of something or someone. This pattern of Swift's use of irony, satire, and humor will be presented in this essay.
In "A Modest Proposal" and Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, satire, irony, and humor are the main literary devices. A way irony in which the author involves the audience is to make them see deeper, moral, and problems through his use of irony to create satire. When comparing of "Gulliver's Travels" and "A Modest Proposal" by Swift one may see how Jonathan Swift is using irony, satire and humor to point out problems in society and to comment on them without openly and totally addressing the reader. In "Modest Proposal" and "Gulliver's Travels" Jonathan Swift uses satire and irony to attain the same goals though because of the differences in the construction of each part, the use of satire differs in "A Modest Proposal" and "Gulliver's Travels. The dominant figure of speech in "A Modest Proposal" is verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says the opposite of what he means. Swift's masterly use of this device makes his main argument, that the Irish deserve better treatment from the English powerful and dreadfully amusing, "Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance.
