A modest Proposal uses an approach called satire to make its point which is the use of irony humor or exaggeration to criticize the ideas of others. Swift obviously to criticize the ideas of others. Swift obviously doesn't sincerely want the people of Ireland to sell their children as food but he's using the outrageous concept to deliver a message. With 'A Modest Proposal,' Swift makes fun of similar pamphlets that were being circulated at the time. His word choice throughout the piece including the word modest in the title highlights this by mocking the false modesty in the tone of many of the pamphlets of his contemporaries. Their style may have seemed reasonable, but their proposals displayed an arrogance only too common among the British
