What is irony and satire?

Question

in John Swift's modest proposal what's the irony

Answer 1

Irony is the use of words expressing something other than their literal intention.
Satire is taking a situation and changing into a different situation in order to make light of it or draw comparisons. For example: George Orwell's animal farm is a satire of communism.

Answer 2

I'm going to quote directly from the site listed as my source, it explains the two very well. It also talks about sarcasm, something many people confuse with irony and satire.


From http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/lit_term.html

Irony: the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happens, what is meant or said and what others understand. Sometimes irony is classified into types: in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed; in cosmic irony or the irony of fate, misfortune is the result of fate, chance, or God; in dramatic irony. the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the audience; Socractic irony is named after Socrates' teaching method, whereby he assumes ignorance and openness to opposing points of view which turn out to be (he shows them to be) foolish.

Sarcasm is one kind of irony; it is praise which is really an insult; sarcasm generally invovles malice, the desire to put someone down, e.g., "This is my brilliant son, who failed out of college."

Satire is the exposure of the vices or follies of an indiviudal, a group, an institution, an idea, a society, etc., usually with a view to correcting it. Satirists frequently use irony.

Answer 3

John Swift`s modest proposal was wriiten in response to English attitude to the Irish It was not intended to be taken as a serious suggestion.
Swift almost defines satire in this biting and brutal pamphlet in which he suggests that poor (catholic) Irish families should fatten up their children and sell them to the rich (protestant) land owners, thus solving the twin problems of starving children and poverty in one blow. So the irony of this proposal was when it was published in 1729 Swift was quickly attacked, and even accused of barbarity...... the exact state of the Proposal was written to expose
SATIRE
Although satire is usually witty, and often funny, this humour is more often than not tempered by passion and anger, even righteous fury
IRONY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Answer 4

irony is when something happends that isint really expected to happen...for xample a boy got all A's on his report card and 1000000 dollars and had a perfect life, but at the end he was sad......that wasnt expected was it..thats irony