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Brandon Derek Michael Dothager 6th Hour AP English Monday, September 12, 2011 Ultimately, A Modest Proposal is one giant satire using the rhetorical device known as parallelism. The United Kingdom, split between the patriarchal England and the subordinate Irish, has its own parent-abused child relationship. Swift satirically parallels this with his own proposal that, instead of raising children properly (as should the British do when raising government in Ireland), Irish Catholics further the notion of British mercantilism and raise children solely for food and profit. Swifts entire modest proposal is actual an absurd satire using parallelism to pick apart British mercantilism, aided by diction and irony. Ironically, A Modest Proposal is, in fact, an attack on preposterous British policies. Not so modest, is it?