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Malcolm Meares
World Literature II
Thursday 8 AM
"A Indecent Proposal, Not Modest" Jonathan Swift was ahead of his time. Most of his stories are satirical and meant to be funny, but were harshly chastised as being a actual idea in the eyes of the general public. His strengths, in writing terms, are irony, overstatement, and good ol' sarcasm. His mannerisms are a expressionistic and simple, to say the least. Every sentence trickles instead of flowing. A Modest Proposal is a attention grabber. It, at first, make the reader think that Swift is legit about selling children. Later on they realize he is addressing a problem in Ireland, that is a famine, and sneakily taking a jab at the English across the pond. In modern times, Swift is considered a rhetorical genius in his writing not to mention getting a point across. England tried to solve many of Ireland's problems, but failed in the most miserable way. They made it worse in fact. A Modest Proposal is a perfect example of how a book can be judged by the cover.
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What a simple yet effective word for any situation. Swift uses it to convoy that the Irish should be treated better by the English. It is painfully amusing while all the matter powerful. Apparently, the Irish should not treated as mindless animals, yet compared to them. The children should be bought and dressed hot from the knife. The same is for roasting pigs. Also, as a positive "development", Swift lists the diseases, famine, and horrid living conditions as a plus to be cheerful. In modern times a example of irony, this case verbal, is the expression "it's no big deal, my dad just died". That is a big deal to anybody and everybody. The title itself is ironic as Swift tries to play his idea off as "humble", yet in reality, is one that would never work. His methods, to some, are compared to
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. Swift also used the irony of the title to emphasize how absurd his idea truly is, by claiming the proposal is modest he allows the reader to understand how
A modest proposal by Dr. Jonathan Swift demonstrates acts of satirical devices which help develop and better his piece. Swift uses sarcasm throughout his piece, which keeps you hanging on and makes you want to keep reading to see why he does this. Swift also uses invective, he uses this in his piece by saying things that are contradicting, only to add strength to what he is supporting. Lastly and most important, Swift uses understatement and minimizes the situation of cannibalism and makes it seem like it is an everyday thing and that it isn’t a big deal.
Jonathon Swift “Modest Proposal” is shocking satire that is supposed to bring to light the ill state of the Irish nation during the time period.
Ireland. The problem is that there are children all over Ireland starving and begging for food. He
Published in 1729, “A Modest Proposal” is a satirical essay that intends to inform readers of the difficult situation of poor low-class people in Ireland. Furthermore, the essay is a piece of literature that condemns the unethical proposal of eating humans. In a satirical proposal, the author suggests that low-class Irish citizens may resort to selling their dependent children in an attempt to attain economic freedom. In exchange of money, the children would be used as food sold to the upper-class society. This essay explores and evaluates the overall effectiveness in achieving its effectiveness in Jonathan Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal.” In the essay, Swift employs the quality of Aristotle’s rhetoric in to develop the persuasive argument.
In Jonathan Swift’s story, “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”, he made a satire to talk about how the poor people in Ireland can’t afford to have children and that they have found a solution to that problem by using a very cold-hearted treatment to the poor people. The story is mainly about finding a reasonable, stress-free, and an inexpensive solution to help the starving children of Ireland become more useful to the wealthier people in the country. The story tells us that the solution is to fatten up all the children from poor families and feed them to Ireland’s land-owners that are very rich. Children from the poor could be sold at one year of age to a meat market (Swift). Swift’s argument in this story is that by the poor people giving up their children to the rich will give them an income that will be very helpful and by doing this it will fight overpopulation and
When first reading A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly known as A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift, it is easy to allow the content of the essay to take you by surprise. A Modest Proposal was written by Jonathan Swift in 1729, as an answer to the problems that Ireland was facing at the time. After the first reading of the essay, one might think that Swift is a mad man and that he should be put into a mental hospital. The subject of the essay is quite shocking, but once one learns the history behind the essay, they can discover what Swift was really meaning in his essay. At first glance, this proposal seems
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” uncovers the laxity of British and Irish Gentry towards the increasing poverty in Ireland and the exploitation of the Irish. With its metaphors that depicts cannibalism as an acceptable solution to hunger, ‘modest’ can only be seen as an euphemism for this egregious suggestion. This satire dictates an economically insightful proposal that alleviate poor parents of their ‘unwanted bastards’. As a result of this proposal, the outcome suggests to hinder children from being an excessive liability to the public, which then will be beneficial. With mathematical and economical reasoning, the dehumanization, devouring and devaluing of human life only speaks to criticize the British’s negligence. Moreover, “A Modest
Both Swift and Kingston, authors of “A Modest Proposal” and “On Discovery” respectively, use irony to expose realities regarding a particular social construct. For instance, the narrator of “A Modest Proposal” proposes the slaughter and trade of beggar infants as a solution to Ireland’s overpopulation. Overlooking the flagrant moral injustice of murdering thousands of children, the narrator casually discusses how infant carcasses make for “dishes of excellent nutritive meat”, “admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots” (166 idk how to cite). Swift clearly uses verbal irony to reveal the upper class’ blatant disregard for the poor of Ireland, and thereby exposes the discrimination inherent in the Irish social hierarchy. Meanwhile, Kingston’s
Speaking for majority of Irish people, Swift comes up with a plan which is to get children out of the streets and away from their begging profession. Swift clearly states in his proposal, “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy Child well Nursed is at a year Old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome Food, whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or Boyled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a Fricasie, or Ragoust”. Swift is making fun of the attitude of the British that think of the Irish as not useful in their world of riches. When reading this letter, it is easily mistaken when Swift puts you in the mindset of how Ireland is struggling with their poor and how they are a burden to other people with more money. He then goes to say that the children should be sold into a meat eating industry for the well off, which catches anyone off guard. It isn’t clearly stated that his intentions aren’t exactly true, but coming from the time period in which this letter was written it is easier to understand his attitude and
Swift was trying to get people’s attention by suggesting outrageous solutions, and that’s exactly what he had accomplished. “A Modest Proposal,” which was written mainly for Irish and English writers, was reprinted seven times in the same year (630). The fact that Swift’s essay was reprinted that many times had shown that his writing was being taken seriously, and people were finally beginning to realize that they had to come up with solutions, that they need to do everything possible to make these solutions possible. Although his essay was meant to be taken as a joke, but a joke that would open people’s eyes to the inhumanity that was happening, people really started coming up with many solutions that could hopefully fix the problem, and that is exactly what Swift was hoping for. Before “A Modest Proposal” had been written, the potato famine and the drought wasn’t being taken as seriously and many did not understand the consequences of the famine such as disease, starvation, sickness, and much more. It is estimated that in the six years the famine had lasted, about over a million men, women, and children died because they relied heavily on potato in their diets and a million more had fled the country (TheHistoryPlace. Gavin, Philip. Irish Potato
A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift, addresses the distinctions between class systems and the severity between these divisions. Within the title of the proposition itself, the title states, “For preventing the children of poor...from being a burden on their parents, or country.”(Swift) This proposition initially introduces the poor as a growing concern towards the country. An issue that if not confronted could jeopardize the stability of the country. This understanding is further embellished with negative connotations found in the first few paragraphs. For example, statements such as, “It is a melancholy object to those.”, and “they grow up, either turn to thieves.”, are introduced early to reinforce his immoral argument to come.(Swift) Within A Modest Proposal, Swift emphasizes that poverty is a
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...
A Modest Proposal was written in 1729 by Jonathan Swift, an Irish-born writer. He used his writing to criticize what he thought was irrational and unjust. During the 1500s, England's Protestant rulers began to dominate Ireland. In the 1700s, when the essay was written, Ireland’s Catholics were being heavily taxed and oppressed by the English Protestant rule. Because of this, Ireland became impoverished and subservient to benefit Britain. Swift’s intended audience was people who could enact change in others to ease the problems in Ireland at the time. In his essay, Swift criticizes the English government and the wealthy for creating poverty in Ireland. He uses verbal irony when he proposes that saving infants to be sold for food is the way to resolve the growing problem of the impoverished. By developing this idea and implying that the English will not mind if the Irish use children for food, Swift suggests that the English government is callous and cruel. Swift combines a logical structure with verbal irony to create a shocking satire that highlights the need for real solutions to the poverty problem in Ireland.
Swift wrote ‘a Modest Proposal’ to draw peoples attention to the discrimination against Irish Catholics. I will now consider the use of satire in swift’s text a ‘Modest Proposal’ five satirical techniques: unexpected words, exaggeration, reversing what is expected, and odd or inappropriate comparison or analogy and finally to start off believable. An example of this is ‘ it is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town’ this is a believable start to the book. It makes it sound like a biography, another example is when he mentions about eating babies ‘a healthy young child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.’ This turns the book around. This makes people want to read on because of that one line.