In this essay, two works will be compared. These are 1 Corinthians 13 (pp. 930 & 931) and A Modest Proposal (pp. 482–489). The first was written by Paul of Tarsus while the second was written by Jonathan Swift. “A Modest Proposal” is a Juvenalian satire that was written by Swift presumably in protest against the treatment by England of Ireland as well as against the social inequalities that existed within Ireland itself (Landa, 1942). By constructing and defending the barbaric proposal that impoverished Irish people should sell their year-old babes as food, Swift ridicules the practices of the rich and affluent and shocks them into seeing their inequities. On the other hand, 1 Corinthians 13 is a biblical passage, in which Paul covers the topic of love; what it is and how it should be practiced by Christians. The passage covered the importance of love, the description of what love is, and the Christian duty to grow to maturity and exercise love for others at all times. This essay would like to see how similar and different the two works are.

It was found that the two works were similar in terms of what they wanted to achieve.

Both “A Modest Proposal” and 1 Corinthians 13 seek to persuade readers on a specific matter. In “A Modest Proposal,” Swift attempts to open the eyes of the readers upon the social ills that are plaguing the country, and convince them to take action, or at least take fault in their own actions that contribute to the problem and seek out to reform themselves. Similarly, Paul professes about the importance of love in man’s life. He explains how without love, those that are of value become worthless. He tries to convince readers on becoming mature, on “putting away childish things” (p. 930) and striving to see beyond the glass. However, how each work conveys its message and attempts to persuade its readers are where the focal points of difference between “A Modest Proposal” and 1 Corinthians 13 lie. 1 Corinthians 13 is a biblical passage while “A Modest Proposal” is a satirical essay. While the Bible is not devoid of satires or at least, a satirical spirit in many of its books, Paul’s work in 1 Corinthians 13 is direct in its message. Paul is straightforward is telling the reader that love is patient, kind, and unselfish. While he makes use of similes in the passage, he only does so to emphasize meaning rather than make the passage seem too profound. For example, he describes a gifted individual without love as “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” to stress how important love is. This is very different from the approach that is used by Swift in “A Modest Proposal,” which is much more complex. Swift begins the essay with a thorough discussion of the economic problem that Ireland is facing, and to those who are not familiar with the literary genre of satires, it may seem that Swift actually is very serious in advocating that the impoverished people in the land sell their offspring to be butchered as delicacies for the rich. Only upon thorough digestion of the essay can one become aware of the gross sarcasm that Swift is dealing through his words, which targets those very people who he calls refined gentlemen. In exposing the reader to the grotesque proposal of cannibalism and infanticide in order to save the society from the economic ills that it faced, Swift shows them that the plight of the impoverished is severe, and that it has come to a point where even notions as barbaric as the one he is pretending to forward can be logically defended. It is assumed that it is with this extensive use of irony that Swift hopes to shock people into realizing their part in the ordeal of their fellowmen, particularly if they were landlords, or politicians, or simply the wives of rich men who enjoyed pampering themselves with foreign luxuries. The wide difference in the length of each literary work also supports how one is much more direct than the other. Paul is able to deliver his message about Christian love in no more than a page, while Swift’s essay takes several pages and it takes several readings to be able to grasp the author’s intended meaning.