Jonathan Swift employs satire, irony, and humor in his political pamphlet A Modest Proposal in order to bring attention to, and in some cases lampoon, many different issues in his country of Ireland. The chief issue among these being the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Swift’s “modest proposal” turns out to be anything but, and he masterfully creates a long running joke throughout his pamphlet that never concretely delivers the punchline until the very end. This underlying, sapling, humor forces his audience into taking his ironic proposal seriously until the final moments of the proposal, making the irony throughout all the more effective. A Modest Proposal introduces such a horribly ironic plan that the reader’s natural instinct …show more content…
Having “maturely weighted the several schemes of other projectors”(1288), Swift’s narrator asserts that other plans proposed to take care of the poor are inherently flawed as those children will still be a plague on society until they mature to working age. He goes on to describe the details of his plan, calculating that one hundred and twenty thousand poor children would be available to sell for food. Of this group it is proposed that twenty thousand of these be saved for breeding, and furthermore one fourth would be male “more than we [Irish society] allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine” (1289). Swift uses this line to let his piercing irony shine through for the first time in the pamphlet in dehumanizing the impoverished people of Ireland by speaking of them as strictly statistics and treating them as livestock. This ironic comparison brilliantly plays on the sad fact that, at the time, poor families were treated worse as humans than the livestock throughout the country. This dehumanization continues as Swift advises that mothers of poor children should receive payment of ten shillings, or roughly $65.38 in today’s money. The further irony here is that this amount of …show more content…
To this point the main driving force of Swift’s commentary was built around his outrageous proposal, one that comes off as so fantastical that the reader is just waiting for the “gotcha!” moment. However, instead Swift starts to use the grim irony of his proposal to build up and support his real intentions. Swift confesses that for more “thrifty” people the carcasses of the dead babies could be flayed, and the skin used to make admirable gloves for the “fine” ladies. Swift brilliantly lampoons the Irish upper class for their inability to take minor financial cuts in order to help the general good of society, especially by helping the poor. Instead he suggests that it would be “thrifty” to take the skin of the children to wear as gloves, something that would be the complete opposite of being thrifty as it would waste a human life. Swift also employs the use of loaded, in this case extremely patriotic,words and phrases in his diction to help highlight the irony of his writing. The best example of this can be seen when describing a conversation he had with a “deserving patriot” and “true lover of his country”(1290) who, upon hearing Swift’s proposal, offers his own refinement that poor children between the ages of twelve and fourteen to replace the supply of venison in the country. The use of those loaded phrases to describe someone who not only went along with Swift’s proposal, but gave his own refinement
His very different tones throughout “A Modest Proposal” helps the reader realize that the essay’s idea is absurd. Swifts tone at the beginning of the essay is very sympathetic towards the people of Ireland, but his sympathy hastily goes away when he suggests his idea. Swift changes the tone of the essay so drastically it shocks the readers by making “A Modest Proposal” very ironic to its name.
The issue that Swift is addressing is the fact that there are too many poor children in Dublin and that they are becoming such a huge burden for all the poor mothers or parents of the country. Swift then creates his own solution to the problem. He proposes that all poor children who are around one year of age, be cooked and eaten by the people of Dublin, preferably the poor. With this solution, he argues that it will eventually put an end to the overpopulation of the poor young children and it will satisfy the hunger for all the other people. Crazy right?
The essay “A Modest Proposal” written by Johnathan Swift takes a satirical view on how to solve the starvation issue in Ireland. Swift suggests an obviously satirical solution to eating children around the age of one. He used irony, ambiguity, and ethos to emphasize the satirical nature of the essay and present a captivating idea to the audience. Swift used irony throughout the essay, beginning with the title, “A Modest Proposal”. The irony of the title gives the audience a false idea of what the essay will be, later on he gives his argument and the title serves as an ironic statement.
Satire, Humor, and Shock Value in Swift's Modest Proposal. Swift's message to the English government in "A Modest Proposal" deals with the disgusting state of the English-Irish common people. Swift, as the narrator, expresses pity for the poor and oppressed, while maintaining his social status far above them. The poor and oppressed that he refers to are Catholics, peasants, and the poor homeless men, women, and children of the kingdom. This is what Swift is trying to make the English government, in particular the Parliament, aware of: the great socioeconomic distance between the increasing number of peasants and the aristocracy, and the effects thereof.
Jonathan Swift, a well-known author, in his essay “A Modest Proposal,” implies that the Irish people should eat children so that they can better their chances of survival. Swift supports his implication by describing how his proposal will have many advantages such as, eliminating papists, bringing great custom to taverns, and inducing marriages. He comes up with an absurd proposal to eat and sell the children to the elite so the Irish can have a brighter future. His purpose is to show that the Irish deserve better treatment from the English. Throughout his essay, Swift uses sarcasm, satire, and irony.
In eighteenth century Ireland, the nation was in a famine and an epidemic of poverty due to the high prices of land and food. Jonathan Swift saw a problem, so he wrote and spread what we call today, A Modest Proposal. Swift’s essay is satirical. He exaggerates and gives inaccurate statistics to deliver a thesis that runs deeper than the explicit one about eating babies. While much of the essay seems to imply that Swift’s persona eats babies, there are some instances where Jonathan hints at the ironic themes of the writing.
In the time frame that Swifts’ A Modest Proposal was written Ireland was going through political, economic, and religious struggles. In 1729 England had contrived, with the help of Irish venality, to wreck Ireland’s merchant marine, agriculture, and wool industry. Prostitutes in Swift’s paper are having kids like senseless people, but yet they can’t afford to feed them. Jonathan Swift proposes that his people should sell the babies and eat them. He thinks this would help solve the problem of over population. Swift tried to give his people pamphlets on how to fix the problem that was plaguing their country, but they ignored them. Swift says “These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants.”(1) Swift proposes that the mothers sell the babies for 8 shillings; the rich would find the child to be a delicacy and the extra money would go to the landlord. So everyone would benefit from this proposal. He does this as a way of making his people aware of what is going on in their
Through the creation of a pompous, highly educated and sophisticated proposer, in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, the targeted audience, the absentee landlords and parliament of England, and the reader naturally identify with the proposer. The proposer’s rigorous logic, serious and cynical tone deduces the ghastly proposition of cannibalism for economic, political, moral, and nationalistic gain. However, through the targeted audience’s identification with the proposer, Swift is able to propose the ironic humanity of his satirical proposal and thus indict colonial landlordism in Ireland and in Enlightenment ideals. Swift’s proposer’s tone is used for both the ostensible and actual purpose of the proposal; through the adherence to the ideals of the Enlightenment, which would be that of the targeted audience, Swift is able to critique the ideology of logic and rationality as fundamental to morality in the proposal.
Effectively ushering change in society or pointing out faults that have existed and gone unnoticed can be a daunting task for any social commentator. Often, blandly protesting grievances or concerns can fall upon deaf ears and change can be slow or non-existent. However, Jonathan Swift in his pamphlet A Modest Proposal, uses clever, targeted, and ironic criticism to bring the social state of Ireland to the attention of indolent aristocrats. He accomplishes such criticism through satire, specifically Juvenalian satire. Swift’s A Modest Proposal stands as an example of the type of satire that plays upon the audience’s emotion by creating anger concerning the indifference of the voice created. He complements such criticism with sophisticated, clever language which may be mistaken for the more docile Horatian satire. Yet, this urbane voice, coupled with irony and the substance of the proposals accentuates Swift’s motive to use anger as a force for action. Through his absurd/humorous proposals, stinging irony, and use of voice, Swift effectively portrays A Modest Proposal as a Juvenalian satire designed to stir emotions concerning the social state of Ireland.
In Jonathan Swift’s satire, “A Modest Proposal”, Swift writes about the starving people of Ireland in the early 1700’s. He makes a wild and absurd proposal to help remedy the problems of overpopulation and poverty. Swift wants to make a political statement by using the “children” as satire to grasp the attention of the audience - the English people, the Irish politicians and the rich – and make them aware of the political, moral, and social problems. In “A Modest Proposal”, Swift’s arguments are presented effectively by using pathos (emotional appeal), ethos (ethics and values), and logos (logic reasoning and facts).
This essay by Jonathan Swift is a brutal satire in which he suggests that the poor Irish families should kill their young children and eat them in order to eliminate the growing number of starving citizens. At this time is Ireland, there was extreme poverty and wide gap between the poor and the rich, the tenements and the landlords, respectively. Throughout the essay Swift uses satire and irony as a way to attack the indifference between classes. Swift is not seriously suggesting cannibalism, he is trying to make known the desperate state of the lower class and the need for a social and moral reform in Ireland.
Humor can come in many different forms. Many people are aware of the blatant humor of slapstick, but it takes a keener mind to notice the subtle detail in sarcasm or satire. In A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift was able to create a piece of literature addressing the faults of the Irish culture while embedding in a humorous essay. Swift’s satire allows for the gravity of the Irish standings to be exploited under the disguise of a proposal for economic benefit.
Irishmen, educated, father and husband. All these titles make Jonathan Swift more than qualified to be the author of “A Modest Proposal,” published in the 1729. It discussed the astonishing poverty that was sweeping the Irish nation, his home country, during the early 18th century, which in his opinion was not the nations own doing. He adopts a sarcastic tone in order to display to the Irish people the injustices cast upon them, and to inspire his countrymen to rise up from poverty and stand up to those who held them down.
Irony is a beautiful technique exercised to convey a message or call a certain group of people to action. This rhetorical skill is artfully used by Jonathan Swift in his pamphlet “A Modest Proposal.” The main argument for this mordantly ironic essay is to capture the attention of a disconnected and indifferent audience. Swift makes his point by stringing together a dreadfully twisted set of morally untenable positions in order to cast blame and aspersions on his intended audience. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” employs despicably vivid satire to call for change in a world of abuse and misfortune.
"A child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year with little nourishments."(pg.623) In this satire, the author is explaining a child will be born and fed off of his mother’s milk, but that milk will not be plentiful because the mother is malnourished. To solve the problem of sad fate of the poverty stricken Irish people, who spend their life looking for food to feed their families. Swift has developed a plan to benefit the rich, by using the poor. His plan is to fatten up the unnourished children, and raise them as food for the wealthier citizens of Ireland. This would give the Irish economy a consequential advance, and reduce the population, which would make it easier for the great and noble England to deal with their disorderly citizens. Swift’s proposal would benefit the wealthy with more food supply and the poor with more income. This also contradicts the proposal because the poor would become rich.