A new historicist approach to Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and A Tale of A Tub

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how the British society and political approach of the kingdom in the course of eighteenth-century is criticized by Jonathan Swift employing the genre satire. The thesis is aimed at explaining his critical perspective by means of providing pertinent background information and carrying out new historicist analysis of "A Modest Proposal" and A Tale of a Tub. The reader is provided with information about some fractions of the author's life and the eighteenth-century as well as the genre satire and the works of Jonathan Swift. It has been discussed that Swift criticizes the mentality of the society of his age and major political doctrines of the era making extensive use of the satire genre. In A Tale of a Tub, Swift underlines the political, social, religious, and economic subjugation England exercised over Ireland in the last decades of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Swift, in "A Modest Proposal", points out the colonial practices of England on Ireland. He lays emphasis on the indifference of the people in ruling and upper-class Ireland regarding the colonial practices of England. By suggesting cannibalism as an alternative solution to Ireland's monetary problems, he chooses to reflect his concern ironically in his pamphlet using literary techniques such as irony, parody, and allegory. On a larger scale, Jonathan Swift aims at attacking the universally-shared human emotions and aspirations like arrogance and greediness. It has been observed that even though his original purpose is to berate and reform the people of his age, Jonathan Swift proves himself to be an influential writer in any age through the use of satire.