Since one of the core features of any human activity is standardly purposefulness and meaningfulness, it appears reasonable to seek purpose and meaning in particular in works of literature. For centuries on end, works of fiction have been created by writers either to reflect the existing reality or to create a new, more desired one. Reflection of reality in literature can be instigated by such motives as a wish to praise and glorify the perfection of what is perceived on the one hand, or to point out the negative phenomena in order to stimulate its improvement on the other hand. In certain times the latter criticism of reality could be given a hostile reception by censure of the governing circles; thus it had to be disguised appropriately, with one of the ways to array criticism being irony and sarcasm. A veiled lunge against the injustice of the time could pass unnoticed in form of allegory or pamphlet. In modern times, when freedom of speech and freedom of press became more widespread in civilized society, irony and sarcasm do not lose their importance. They remain an efficient way of appealing to society, since they produce quite a profound impact attracting attention, amusing and instructing at the same time. It seems therefore curios to trace how irony and sarcasm are made use of by two writers of different periods on the example of Jonathan Swift’s pamphlet “A Modest Proposal” dating back to the first half of the eighteenth century, and Judy Brady’s essay “I Want a Wife” published more than two centuries later, in 1971. Apparently, despite the time gap and a series of individual peculiarities, Swift’s and Brady’s works demonstrate a striking semblance in the issues they focus on, the sarcastic rendition of the topic, the persuasive approach bolstered with numerous examples by both authors. The first similarity that strikes the reader is that between the issues brought to light in the works of fiction discussed. Both Jonathan Swift and Judy Brady bring to light the urgent problems of their time. For the Irish satirist, the situation of economic, political and religious oppression of his country by the British Empire appeared so outraging that he published his anonymous pamphlet as a mockery of the British policy with a possible ‘solution’ to the problems of his country. The idea of social oppression of the poor streams throughout the whole piece, with the hopeless situation emphasized by thorough descriptions of the scarce choice paupers have: “… helpless infants […] as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes” (Swift 297). A whole range of misfortunes forms a closed circle for those poor people and their offspring, and Swift openly talks about all the possible misery that accompanies them during their lives: “… the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.” (Swift 306) In Brady’s