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The analysis of the modest proposal by Jonathan Swift
Analysis of modest proposal by Jonathan swift
Child labour early 1800's
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In his essay “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Swift makes the argument that eating the undernourished children of Ireland is just one way of helping to solve the economic crisis. Swift claims that children are useless and a burden to their families until the age of twelve, and says “they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old” (584). He offers various arguments as to why turning infants into livestock is just one way of turning these burdens into something beneficial to the country. The suggestion to eat children is clearly anything but modest, but therein lies the beauty of Swift’s argument. His use of satire causes his readers to think more broadly about the issue Ireland is facing, as well as question …show more content…
why England, who owned Ireland at the time, isn’t doing anything to help them. Swift cleverly constructs his argument so that it carries an exceptionally strong ethos, which instills a sense of trust in the reader.
He does this by namedropping various figures, such as “a principle gentleman in the county of Cavan,” and by backing himself up with statistics of the sheer number of poor children and families living in Ireland at the time (584). He says that there are about 120,000 children born to impoverished parents annually in the kingdom, after subtracting children who do not make it to birth or pass away within their first year (584). Readers are much more likely to trust an author should they present facts and figures to reinforce their claim. Though satirical, Swift wants his readers to listen to him, because in reality he is presenting much bigger ideas regarding the tyrannical rule of …show more content…
England. English people at the time could own property in Ireland and not pay taxes on it, so long as they still held permanent residence in England. However, they could force a large rent upon anyone living on that land. This meant the English were essentially taking one of the few things worth value in the country and taking it away from actual Irish people, thus ensuring their poverty. Swift argues that selling otherwise useless children as livestock gives them monetary value, and allows their parents to own something that can’t be ripped away from them by the English. Giving children a value would not only help feed the thousands of starving citizens, but it would also lessen the tight grip that England held over Ireland. There are many viable arguments that Swift offers in favor of eating children.
One such argument is that it would lessen the number of abortions (584). Swift claims that abortions occur because mothers cannot care for their children due to poverty, but he also thinks that abortion is a “horrid practice” (584). He argues that by eating infants, parents will have more money to care for their children and that those children won’t grow up to be thieves and beggars. Swift also makes the argument that introducing this cannibalistic practice will strengthen people’s marriages. He states that people will want to actually love and nurture their children, and husbands will be less inclined to beat their wives if their wives are essentially giving birth to money
(587). Swift is an excellent writer, and knows exactly how to play to his audience. While there would be some people that wouldn’t understand the irony behind his writing, that only serves to exemplify the genius of his words. The way Swift uses satire is still utilized today, in shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While these shows are presented by comedians who are being funny, they mock serious, real world issues. At many times, screengrabs from The Daily Show make their way around social media because they feature poignant commentary on the United States political atmosphere. This is because people find they can connect more easily to contentious issues when they can laugh about them. Swift employs a similar tactic. The idea of eating children is so outlandish it is laughable, but its absurdness drew a reader’s attention to the much bigger issue of English tyranny.
Swift wants his readers to interpret his speaker as a kindhearted, sensible gentleman with a sincere concern for resolving problems for the Irish people. In the first eight paragraphs, the reader meets an affectionate man with precise insight into the predicament he will shortly address. By doing this, the speaker establishes himself up as someone who would not make an outrageous proposition. This makes his words even more effective.
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 of 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.
“A Modest Proposal” and “Let Them Eat Dog” have a common argument that we are dealing with over population of humans and animals. Swift uses satire to make us think that he really wants us to eat babies. Foer tells us of people eating animals were not accustomed to. This can put an economical strain on everyone if we don’t use our resources wisely. Both of these articles may be elusive for some to read. Both papers touch on the topics of eating animals, economic issues, and culture.
Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is an attempt to bring attention to horrible the condition in which the poor or destitute people in Ireland are living in. His argument that children of these improvised people should be sold to “the persons of quality and fortune” (A Modest Proposal) for consumption, is Swift’s gruesome way of saying you might as well eat the babies, if no one is going to actually try to fix the problems of the poor in Ireland.
The issue is that there is a growing number of poor and starving women and children living on the streets of Ireland that are a burden to the public and the country. The context is that these homeless and starving women and children are left to fend for themselves on the streets. Jonathan Swift is making the argument from the point of a concerned citizen who has spent years among the poor in Ireland studying the situation and trying to come up with a solution. Johnathan Swift used the example that those who visit Ireland and see the streets crowded with women and children that are beggars conclude that Ireland is a very poor, overpopulated country full of beggars and that they look down upon their country that is in such poor shape. His bias is that as a citizen living in Ireland, he does not want to be looked down upon by other countries. His targeted audience seems to be the citizens of the country and those in higher up positions who ...
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that describes a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation.
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 h 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.
Pamphlets were often used to spread ideas throughout Ireland in the late 1600s, however, many were discarded and ignored. “A Modest Proposal,” by Jonathan Swift, uses the pamphlets to his advantage by proposing a ridiculous idea to show how messed up the state of Ireland was. Swift proposed that the babies of all the poor would “contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands” or in other words, improve Ireland 's economic problems and standard of living (Swift). His main reason for proposing this drastic idea was because women continued to have children they could not provide food or anything for in some cases and Swift’s idea would make the children “beneficial to the public” (Swift). For these reasons, Swift looks at not only the politicians to blame for the poor conditions but the citizens of Ireland as well. In “A Modest Proposal”, Swift uses harsh
Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is a shocking satire that discusses the dire poverty in Ireland. It says if one is born poor, they will stay that way unless society puts them to use. Children are food to be eaten. In an economic slump, children will be used to feed and clothe Ireland’s population. Swift’s purpose for writing A Modest Proposal was to call attention to the exploiting and oppressing by the English to the Irish.
In his biting political satire called ?A Modest Proposal,? Jonathan Swift seeks to create empathy for the poor through his ironic portrayal of the children of Irish beggars as commodities that can be regulated and even eaten. He is able to poke fun at the dehumanization of the multitudes of poor people in Ireland by ironically commenting on what he sees as an extension of the current situation. Swift?s essay seeks to comment on the terrible condition of starvation that a huge portion of Ireland has been forced into, and the inane rationalizations that the rich are quick to submit in order to justify the economic inequality. He is able to highlight the absurdity of these attempted explanations by presenting cannibalism as a logical (although not particularly valid or sound), mathematically calculated alternative to the current situation. In doing so Swift is able to shock the readers into defending the poor. Through his emotionless tones and clever diction, Swift seeks to stir up the readers? feelings of indignation and compassion and thus help remind them that people are human beings and deserve to be treated as such, and not treated as figures in mathematical equations or pieces of meat.
An Oxford University graduate, Jonathan Swift, in his article, A Modest Proposal, proposes a solution to Irelands growing poverty in the 18th century by proposing the selling and eating of innocent babies. Swift’s purpose is to state the benefits that the poor would gain from selling their one year old children to the wealthy to eat them. He takes on a concerning tone in order to convince the people of Ireland to consider and adopts his obscene plan.
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.
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (1729), argues that in order to gain control of the overwhelming poverty and population problem in Ireland, a rational solution would be to turn to cannibalize the “bastard children” who have no means of survival. (Add in somewhere of how they would be eating poor kids who can’t be taken care of) Swift develops his argument by appealing to the reader with pathos, logos and ethos in many different ways. The authors purpose is to present his argument, for cannibalism in order to persuade the reader that it is a logical option that Ireland can take in the hopes to solve the poverty and economic problem. The relationship the author develops with the
In “A Modest Proposal,” Swift employs a satirical tone to mock both the callous attitudes towards the poor and the poor themselves. Swifts “modest” solution to the fiscal and social issues going on in Ireland is nothing but the opposite, as he proposes that the impoverished should sell their infants as food for money. In using the word “modest” to describe his proposal of eating Irish infants and/or offering their flesh as a source of clothing, Swift makes the sarcasm of his story evident from the beginning. By using such an inconspicu...
During the eighteenth century, Jonathan Swift was distributing pamphlets around Ireland in hopes of promoting intellectual growth in his homeland. As he noticed this was not making an impact, he decided to address the problems in Ireland with a different approach. Jonathan Swift took to paper and constructed “A Modest Proposal”, a satirical piece that proposes a humorous solution to the social, economic, and political problems in Ireland. Swift’s proposal suggests that babies who are born to poor families become a source of food for public, which benefits Ireland by reducing the overpopulation and adding to the food supply. In “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift uses satire to draw attention to his argument that the problems in Ireland are greatly affecting his homeland; in doing so, he portrays the themes of class division, suffering, and greed.