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Jonathan Swift A modest proposal with political goals
Jonathan Swift A modest proposal with political goals
Jonathan Swift A modest proposal with political goals
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“A Modest Proposal” and “The Dead” were written nearly 200 years apart from one another, both set in Ireland. These stories are difficult to compare because of the differing subject matter, but with each piece the reader gains an impression of what Ireland was like at the time. Each piece showed a different perspective of Ireland and those who inhabit it.
“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift was published in 1729, right in the middle of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the goals of this time was to “create a society that would be beneficial to everybody” (Sargent). Swift takes a satirical approach about this in “A Modest Proposal”. The tone of his article is humorous and wry, but some of his reasoning makes his parody proposal sound believable.
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He discusses how using young children as a source of food and clothing would improve the state of their town and get the beggars off the streets. The themes in Swift’s story revolve around economic issues and the selfishness of the rich.
With his use of ironic tone, it is easy to see he is mocking the elite. He argues that this new use for poor children will help the economy: “the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old, and upwards, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby encreased fifty thousand pounds per annum” (Swift). This piece makes the rich people look concerned about the appearance of their town, but unconcerned with the welfare of the poor. Swift gets this point across with a comedic article that makes light of the …show more content…
issue. James Joyce published “The Dead” in 1914. This fictional tale tells the story of a man named Gabriel who attends a family party. While all those around him seem to be having a nice time, Gabriel feels alienated. He does not share the devotion to Ireland that those around him do, and he does not feel entirely comfortable with his present atmosphere. The piece has an overall solemn tone, as it deals with Gabriel’s emotional dilemmas. The themes are based on Gabriel’s emotional isolation and feelings of alienation at the party. A significant difference between the pieces was in the way they addressed women.
The role of women in the two stories showed a big difference in the times. Throughout time, women have slowly been gaining respect, and this is exhibited between these two pieces. Swift’s piece makes women sound like nothing more than burdensome child bearers. In the beginning paragraph, Swift sets the scene of his poor town. He talks about how unfortunate it is that when people walk down the streets, they see “beggars of the female sex” with gaggles of children. He complains that the women beg instead of “work of their honest livelihood” because they must take care of their children.
This is quite contrary to Joyce’s primary illustration of women. In “The Dead”, Gabriel’s aunts live together with their niece and a young maid. These women are established in the town as musical performers, and when it came to food they insisted on “the best of everything: diamond-bone sirloins, three-shilling tea and the best bottled stout”
(Joyce). While Swift refers to women as “the constant breeders”, Joyce seems to have respect for the opposite sex, treating them as equals in his story. Not only does Joyce’s entire story revolve around women, but the female characters are strong and opinionated. This is shown when Gabriel’s wife and aunts poke fun at him about a fashion choice, when Miss Ivors questions Gabriel’s loyalty to Ireland, and when Gabriel’s wife is not afraid to tell him what she is really thinking. While Swift’s piece focuses on the streets of Ireland, Joyce’s takes the readers into a home and gives them a peek at the personal lives of Gabriel and his family. Even the maid in Joyce’s story was treated as a member of the family, whereas the poor folk in Swift’s story were treated as if they were animals. Regardless, the authors gave readers two differing views on Irish attitudes according to the time period.
In the first 7 paragraphs, Swift is using qualification. He starts of by saying “female sex” rather than saying women. This promptly reveals a clinical and technical perspective. This statement is also dehumanizing because it is very offensive to women. It makes them sound more like a material in a lab rather than a human being. He then talks about the problem of poverty through numbers, which reveals his overall qualification. He questions the “computation” of “projectors” which continues his technical diction. In the fourth paragraph he refers to a mom as a “dam” which could imply domestic animals. Paragraph 6 provides a model of exposition, supplying evidence and logical explanations. He then discusses some of the costs to sell children into slavery. Through all of the examples that were just provided, it shows the qualification through his
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?
“A Modest Proposal” was written in 1729 by a satirical author by the name of Jonathan Swift. Swift studied at the University of Oxford and was also know for his popular writing in Gulliver’s Travel. The purpose for his satire “A Modest Proposal” was to enlighten the citizens of Ireland about their hardship and suffering. He informed them about their scares of food, money, and property, but provided a possible solution to their problem. To persuade the people Swift adopts a comforting and friendly tone to his audience for the people to react to his solution.
If Jonathan Swift had written a serious piece simply espousing his true beliefs he would not have received as much feedback, due to the fact that there were already informational advertisements at the time and nobody was interested in reading them. The only thing that would get the people 's attention was something that would create a lasting impression, so he wrote a satirical piece with trenchant humor and mochary. “A Modest Proposal” surprised people and got them thinking about the condition of the poor in Ireland and what should be done to solve it. For example Swift states that “those who are thrifty” can use the carcass of the infant for ladies’ gloves or gentlemen’s boots. This itself can help those reading the piece to begin to think about possible solutions to the substantial issues involving the poor in Ireland. He also proposes that children that are fourteen should be consumed as well so the poor don’t have to go hungry and that it would limit the number of breeders, in an attempt to illustrate the extremity of the circumstances. His sarcastic way of joking enlisted fear in the poor and concern in the rich, helping them realise the drastic issue present in the
In addition, the wit that is contained within “A Modest Proposal” is astonishing and superb. Although some have taken “A Modest Proposal” seriously and actually thought that Swift was trying to propose to boil infants and eat them. The reader cannot yield that seriously and if the reader does then it would co...
Swift conveys his message in a brilliant essay, in which he uses satire, humor and shock value. Swift pursues his main point in the first paragraph. It is a melancholy object to those who walk through Dublin. . . . when they see. . Beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and bringing every passenger for an alms.
A “Modest Proposal” is written by a man who had been exiled from England and forced to live among Irish citizens for many years during which he observed major problems in Ireland that needed a solution. The writer of this piece is Jonathan Swift, and in his proposal, “The Modest Proposal,” Swift purpose is to offer a possible solution to the growing problem of the homeless and poverty stricken women and children on the streets of Ireland. Swift adopts a caring tone in order to make his proposal sound reasonable to his audience, trying to convince them that he truly cares about the problems facing Ireland’s poor and that making the children of the poor readily available to the rich for entertainment and as a source of food would solve both the economic and social problems facing Ireland.
For starters, in line 28, Swift writes about the horrors that overpopulation causes. He says, “There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! Too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.” This line is written as serious. It calls the death of babies a crime, and describes the “savage” and “horrid” infanticide; yet the thesis of the essay is about the systematic murdering and consuming of one year old children.
During the 1720’s, the Irish people were suffering dearly, due to the oppression by Great Britain. There oppression came in the form of being displaced by wealthy English people who were buying up land in Ireland and then not living there. They would proceed to rent some of their land to the Irish people at extremely high rent, which eventually led to them not being able to pay neither their rent or provide their families with food or clothes. The reason behind Swift’s proposal is simple. He is an Irishman. He has a sense of patriotic duty to attempt to help his fellow Irish people. He wants them to know that it is possible to move forward form poverty and out from under the oppression of the British. He structures his essay through a basic form of presenting an idea and then backing it up with “facts” like the growth in weight of babies or expert accounts on the taste of children from a credible source. Something that Swift just assumes that the audience will take for granted. Additionally he assumes that the audience won’t simply put his article down, taking it as the ramblings of a mad man talking about eating babies like it’s a normal everyday thing.
Swift begins his argument by stating his view on the situation and displaying his annoyance. He states, "It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country when they see the streets, roads, and cabin doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms" (Swift 1). He uses melancholic imagery for the readers to sympathize with the suffering children and to understand their situation. Similarly, Swift displays his disgust for the wealthy by stating that "There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children… which would move tears in the most savage and inhumane beast" (1). He talks about abortion and shows how ghastly and disheartening the practice is. Clearly, Swift makes use of pathos to slowly gain the reader’s confidence in preparation for his appalling proposal. He knows that many will be emotionally affected by his proposal because no one would want their own c...
This essay will have no value unless the reader understands that Swift has written this essay as a satire, humor that shows the weakness or bad qualities of a person, government, or society (Satire). Even the title A Modest Proposal is satirical. Swift proposes using children simply as a source of meat, and outrageous thought, but calls his propo...
The issue that was facing the Irish people was there were numerous Irish women, with their children in tow, begging on the streets in order to put a meal on the table every night. These women could not find work, and so they were forced to beg in order to provide food for their family and starving children. Jonathan Swift is making an argument to have these poor Irish women produce babies that at the age of one would be sold for a profit. The target audience is the poor Irish families that have too many children to be able to feed. This also targets the rich families of Ireland who will be the ones that will purchase the babies from the poor. The main point is to stop all the women in Ireland from raising so many children that they could not have enough means to be able to feed or clothe them all. The purpose is to help these Irish families that have too many mouths to feed and bodies to cloth already, and this will give them the opportunity to be able to sell their babies after one year and to even make a profit off them as well. The argument is structured first by showing the reader that there is a problem with the poor Irish families not having enough food to feed their quickly growing families. Then Swift moves on to talk about selling these babies to the Lords and wealth...
"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.
... Proposal as a Horatian satire. The tone is only good humored to an extent and is laden with sarcasm such as “therefore let no man talk to me of expedients: of taxing our absentees”, as well as absurd, morally distasteful logic. Furthermore, as construed above, the use of the urbane voice of the proposer is not a supplement to a sophisticated argument, but one cleverly used in unison with irony and sarcasm. This use of clever diction helps to promote effective discussion among aristocrats and peasants alike in the hope of deciphering the real meaning of Swift’s proposal. The point of the essay was to uniquely grab the attention of observes who have been indifferent to the plight of the lower class. Through the aforementioned reasoning, Swift does this through the clever implementation of Juvenelian satire in way that the straight forward Horatian satire could not.
Swift successfully completed his goal in completely and utterly belittling the political aspects of government in his day. He has proven to us that the government has gone unchanged (except for a few bills here and there) for some two hundred years or so. The same problems back then are still present now which causes for the same ideas as Swift. The reader is able to leave his or her seat after reading the novel and understand all of the little annoyances there were about the political scheme in society in those days and compare them to today’s world. After those comparisons, the reader finds that the problems are the same as they were in Swift’s time.