Animal Farm and A Modest Proposal

Animal Farm and A Modest Proposal

Although 'Animal Farm' and 'A Modest Proposal' were written over two hundred years apart, and one is non-fiction and the other is not, there are distinct similarities between the two. Both of the pieces are political, with 'Animal Farm' based on the Russian Revolution, and
'A Modest Proposal' based on the situation of homelessness in Ireland.
Also, both of the pieces are satirical. Animal Farm ridicules the ordinary Russian people for being gullible, and 'A Modest Proposal' mocks politicians who ignore sensible suggestions and come up with extreme ones.

In the build up to his speech, Old Major first clears his throat, to gain all of the animals' attention. The fact that all he has to do is clear his throat to do this, gives the impression that he is authoritative, and in control. We are given the idea that the other animals respect him.

In the following paragraph, Old Major mentions a dream, but he says "I will come to the dream later". The dream is the whole reason the meeting has been called, and by saying that he will talk about it later holds all of the animals in suspense. They are willing to listen to what he has to say, to hear about the dream. He also mentions his imminent death, which will gain the audience's sympathy, and again make them listen. To guarantee that the animals are going to listen to him, he says that he will "pass onto to you such wisdom as I have acquired". This makes it seem like everything he is going to tell them is wise, true and worth listening to.

In the third paragraph of his speech, he is brutally honest, and works up the animals, to get them angry. He tells them "our lives are miserable, laborious and short". This is the 'problem'. He then tells them the 'sol...

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...ing their bastard children; alas!" Again though, Swift uses a lot less exclamation marks than Old Major. This is mainly because his piece is meant to be formal.

Both Old Major and Swift use alliteration in the pieces to make themselves sound stylish and eloquent. In one part of his speech, Old
Major says " as sure as I see this straw " The repetition of the 's' makes certain words in that sentence stand out, making his message more clear. Swift says "Four females".

Although Old Major's speech and 'A Modest Proposal' were written over two hundred years apart, they both use very similar techniques and development of their argument to get their point across. Both of the pieces are politically based and satirical, both use formal and emotive language, differing sentence types and structures and in sparse amounts, alliteration. This makes their arguments fairly
similar.