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like a typical eighteenth century man, believed that the writer did not serve the self but the nation as a cultural custodian, Swift developed an ironic voice in his writing as a means to protect and reform civilization. Moral reform begins with the individual confronting the ways in which he or she is not divided from the sinners who corrupt the world around them. A person must not read a satire and conclude, "oh my, look at all of these sinners doing dreadful things to a cultured world. I must do something about it!" Swift believed that satire holds a mirror up the the individual at the same time that it reflects the world around him. In other words, the reader does not just see the world reflected in a satire. The reader sees himself.

In "A Modest Proposal," Swift writes from the persona of a mathematical person, shrewd in business and cost effectiveness, trained in the art of disarmingly humble political rhetoric, and, above anything else, virtuously rational, gifted with a marvelously charitable common sense. In effect, Swift's narrator represents the concerned and clear-thinking everyman of London in the eighteenth century. The narrator's initially sympathetic rhetoric opens the proposal, drawing us in to empathize with him so that we take the bait. Although he springs his "scheme" on us like a sniper hiding in the bushes-to solve the problem of poverty in Dublin by allowing parents to sell their infant children in the marketplace as food-the method by which he structures his argument, builds up to his proposal, defends his idea and offers sound arguments as to its effectiveness is no different than the way anyone would try to express a political or social piece of legislation or to win a debate. In other words, what is so shocking and disarming about "A Modest Proposal" is not the speaker's solution to the problem of poverty in Ireland, but the brilliantly effective means by which he delivers his argument, sustaining the same "modest" and objective tone no matter what he discusses, be it the facts and figures of populations or the many different creative ways in which one can cook children of various ages. To understand the brilliance of Chaucer's ironic voice, read "A Modest Proposal," and then read the narrator's description of the Knight alongside his description of the Pardoner in "The General Prologue" of The Canterbury Tales, noticing how he maintains the consistantly blithe and disarmingly modest tone when he writes about both radically different

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