Many of Franklin's multi-faceted contributions can be linked to specific phases of his career, but his satirical writing spans his entire life. From the Silence Dogood letters of his teenage years in Boston throughout his professional career and public service in Philadelphia and London, Franklin published satires. His satirical writing needs first to be located in the literary tradition of satire, for only then is it possible to see how his satires contribute to the eighteenth-century revival of the genre. Franklin's satirical writing gave shape to his outlook on society and politics, and it developed in ways that not only drew on but also improved on European techniques and themes. A representative sampling of Franklin's satires from different years in his life will highlight the ways in which his methods and aims changed over time, especially in the noticeable shift that took place in his concerns. It will also illustrate that Franklin remained committed to the principles of the Enlightenment. His earliest satires focused on social mores tied to local issues and parochial institutions. Franklin's satiric writings reveal that he became increasingly troubled by how imperial Britain treated its colonies. Finally, as his last satire makes clear, the issue of slavery troubled Franklin, so he launched an assault on the institution, which plagued the freshly founded United States of America.

Franklin's use of satiric strategies kept with but also broke from strict definitions of satire prevalent in his day. His satires, following the classical tradition, were designed to praise virtue and skewer vice.