1

Morales

Janice Morales

Professor Raquel Leon

English IV

2 June 2021

Comparison of World Hunger’s Viewpoints Between Former and Modern Writers

Jonathan Swift and Oliver Goldsmiths both used satire in their writings, but they used it for

different purposes. The difference between them lay in two areas. Firstly, Goldsmith is more

recognized for his dramas and poetry with plays such as "She Stoops to Conquer," where Swift is

famous for his style and sarcasm, with works such as Gulliver's Travels and "A Modest Proposal."

Both authors heavily used satire to present ideas and themes, but they each had their own

and distinct ways of using satire. Swift deliberately wrote satirical works with the primary

intention of provoking change, as his excellent "A Modest Proposal" shows. Swift wrote this

article out of his outrage of the moment at the reluctance of the British government to do anything

to improve the great suffering of the Irish during a time of famine and want. In doing so, he

proposed a ridiculous scheme that indicated the graveness of the situation and exposed the

uncaring, cold nature of the British.

In his "A Modest Proposal" work, Swift shows a ridiculous plan to present Irish babies as

a food source to solve the famine. This idea is deliberately shocking and provoking. In the hope of

agitating social change, Swift’s satirical work tends to be much more pointed in drawing out his

targets and criticizing them in the form of mockery. Whereas Goldsmith is more subtle in his

charming plays and works.

Goldsmith's works can be viewed more as comedic and uplifting with the situation in "She

Stoops to Conquer” being very comic and hilarious. Goldsmith can briefly indicate from time to
 2
Morales

time that his writings also point towards deep social inequalities of women and their unfair

treatment in a predominantly male driven society. Partly in the charm of personality emanated by

his style was his affection for his characters, his mischievous irony, and his spontaneous

interchange of gaiety and sadness. He was, as a writer, “natural, simple, affecting.”

Both Swift and Goldsmith try to put a human face on poverty. By creating a facts-only

narrator who sees the poor in Ireland merely as a burden that could be made more economically

productive by killing and selling their year-old babies as food. Swift tries to shock the reader into

the awareness that the mass of people called the "poor" are actually flesh and blood human beings.

Goldsmith also tries to shine a light on the poor, showing in "The Desert Village" that the greed of

the wealthy has displaced the poor from their village.

Hunger was clearly one of the social injustices in their time. Both writers criticize the

lack of solutions toward famine in their society. Today, we still have the same problem. Hunger is

a world problem, and nowadays writers call out society differently than Swift and Goldsmith once

did.

The Guardian’s editorial board, in an opinion column, shows statistics that portrays world

hunger as a product of overconsumption. In a very bold way, they claim that hunger is society’s

fault. The writer even calls out the whole world asserting that the way we handle food is poorly

done and that we do not make food our priority.

A world hunger opinion column posted in The New York Times is similar to The

Guardian’s one. Statistics of this problem is showed in the majority of the column making it seem

like a predominant world issue. However, The New York Times summarizes their story calling out

world leaders, specifically the former United States President Donald Trump, who at the time of
 3
Morales

the column was serving as president, for being incompetent and not giving the funds necessary to

solve the hunger problem.

My perspective is that even though Goldsmiths and Swift use different kinds of satire in

order to reveal social issues, they both find their own ways to the readers' ears. Popularity of their

works shows that world themes and problems have not lost their momentum and are still

interesting topics for the modern reader.

In comparison, today’s writers do not work like Swift or Goldsmith. Just as the writers of

The Guardian and The New York Times, today’s writers are more direct and provide statistics

necessary to see the issue at hand, yet they critique society in the same way formers writers such

as Swift or Goldsmith did.

4
Morales

Works Cited List

Swift, J. (2016). Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World.

Goldsmith, O. (2016). The Deserted Village.

Editorial Board. “Food: A Hungry World.” The Guardian, 15 Oct. 2020,

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/01/food-a-hungry-world-editorial.

The Editorial Board. “Opinion | World Hunger Haunts the U.N. Festivities.” The New

York Times, 16 Mar. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/world-hunger-united-

nations.html.