Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

797 Words2 Pages

Modern

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. The essay begins as a Proposal for a solution for the extreme poverty and over population of Ireland during the time period. But with subtle but quick shift in tone, the essay turns grim. Swift proposes that the children of the poor should be fatten up and sold as food to Ireland's rich landowners. He suggested that the children of Ireland would be considered as “delicacies” for the wealthy. In the piece, Swift uses math to try and make his argument more reasonable. He also gave recipes on ways to cook the children and at what age they should be sold at.

As new technology and advancements …show more content…

A perfect example of these problems occurring due to overpopulation is China and India. According to the U.S Census Bureau the population of China and India is estimated at 2.5 billion people. That's about 36 percent of the world’s population in two countries. In China alone, over 40,000 children die each day from malnutrition and its related diseases. Diseases spread rapidly due to the tight spaces and unsanitary living conditions caused by overpopulation. According to CNN, there where huge cholera outbreaks, which killed thousands of people in India because its infrastructure was not prepared for the excess waste due to its growing population. In a study done on human rights by the United Nations, there were an about 78 million homeless people in India and 6.8 million homeless people in China in 2005. With these people receiving little to no education, their only mean of an income is through crime or …show more content…

There are many solutions to solve this problem. For example we could adopt a worldwide "one child" policy. This is a solution that China's government has instituted to control the population in there country. In this policy a couple is only allowed to have one child. If the couple has more than one child, they are faced with a stiff fine, which most can't afford, and if they can't afford it the baby is forcibly aborted. This can be taken a step further by only allowing couples who met a certain criteria such as: an above average combined IQ, good genes, or a substantial amount of wealth to produce offspring. This would not only benefit the prevention of overpopulation but also improve the human race as a whole. According to world-renowned scientist Charles Darwin when only the fittest and best examples from a population are allowed to breed, the species will rapidly evolve to become greater than it ever

Show More
Related

  • A Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

    538 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jonathan Swift is the speaker in the story, A Modest Proposal. He is also the author of many other books and stories. In the text of A Modest Proposal, Swift addresses what he believes to be a big issue in the magnificent country of Ireland, Dublin to be exact. Therefore, he proposes a solution to the problem, however, the solution is not what we would call humane, orthodox, reasonable, or even one that we would consider performing today. Swift wrote this piece for anyone that can read and comprehend what the text implies.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of A Modest Proposal

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Modest Proposal And Let Them Eat Dog Rhetorical Analysis

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Essay In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jonathan Swift is the king of satire known for his seemingly unorthodox works throughout the early 18th century. Swift capitalizes in his arguments by hooking a targeted audience with expert use of logic, tragedy, and character. In “A Modest Proposal” Swift uses exaggerated rhetoric and irony to emphasize his disdain for the troubles facing Ireland throughout the turn of the 17th century. Most of Ireland has succumb to poverty due to English bullying and therefore Swift developed a do-it-yourself solution for those most affected by these hard times. Jonathan Swift effectively persuades poverty-stricken mothers to sell their needy children as consumable meat for Ireland’s betterment through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos in his satire “A

    Read More

  • Analysis of A Modest Proposal

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jonathan Swift, the writer of the satirical essay A Modest Proposal, grew up and lived in Ireland during times of famine and economic struggles (Conditions). Growing up with a single mother and no father, Swift knew what hard times and struggles were like (Jonathan Swift: Biography). His essay proposes an easy solution to the economic problems going on in Ireland for both the wealthy ruling classes and the poorer classes, although his intentions and the meaning behind his words are not what would be originally thought when initially reading the essay. Through his word choices and the description of specific events of his time, Swift uses satire to grab his audience’s attention and get his own personal ideas and opinions out about all the problems going on in Ireland.

    Read More

  • Satirical Response To A Modest Proposal

    650 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the 18th century Ireland was on a very serious crisis. Jonathan Swift decides to write “A Modest Proposal” as a satirical response to this crisis. In that essay he gives a solution for each of the problems that Ireland was having during that time. The main points that he wanted to discuss were domestic abuse, over population, poverty, thieves, and the lack of food. This crisis lead the great nation of Ireland into economical struggles. By all of this problems, the parents couldn’t maintain their children so they needed a solution. Now this incredible man comes with a solution that is going to blow your mind, Swift decides to give them a proposal. It was a really uncommon one but very helpful for them. This proposal is going to stabilize once again the country of Ireland.

    Read More

  • Humor as an Argument: A Modest Proposal

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

    692 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

    1381 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout his writings, Jonathon Swift has used many different voices to explicate his views on the melancholy time period in which he lived. He uses a totally inverse route in writing his works. Swift brings to light many aspects of his culture such as greed, poverty, and ignorance. Other writers of the period would probably not even touch such aspects. “A Modest Proposal” is a prime example of every interesting degree of Swift’s writing abilities. Ingeniously, the essay is a collection of these abilities. In conclusion to the story, the reader can scrutinize each sentence to find a different meaning or interpretation. Clearly, this essay is and should be treated as a work of fiction and nothing more. Though it is nothing more than a fictional work it should be taken into account that the essay carries a deeper meaning to which every reader can find difference.

    Read More

  • Overpopulation Problems in China

    689 Words  | 2 Pages

    Overpopulation Problems in China In spite of the great achievements that China has achieved in the recent years, our country is still a developing country, which is facing many serious social problems. The most serious of all is overpopulation, for it has a passive influence on the national economy, education and environment. First and foremost, overpopulation is the main obstacle to the economic development in China. The limited natural resources in China can hardly support the excessively large population.

    Read More

  • A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conlusion, A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift is a semi-good piece of work that attempts to solve the problems that face Ireland. Throughout this article in my opinion the biggest flaw ,which ironically makes it famous, is the use of satirical writing to address the issues at hand. It unfortunaltly for me destroys his credibility and therefore prevents me from taking him seriously and therefor defeats the purpose of writing this article if no one takes it seriously in the first place. Overall, I belive that Swifts “Modest Proposal” is just an ill-faded attempt to make the very seriously situation in Ireland seem comical and therefore makes his article comical too

    Read More

  • Satire, Irony, And Humor In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

    1320 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Social, Economic And Political Themes In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Overpopulation Is a Growing Problem

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    Overpopulation is a growing problem all over the world. This is a very important environmental issue and needs to be dealt with. This environmental problem is affecting many countries in the world, but mostly the poor and impoverished countries that don’t have the resources to help deal with these issues. It also affects the environment like plants animal life and air quality. When the population of people expands we need more natural resources from the environment, so we consume more then we can produce. This leads to the lack of resources in many areas. When expanding we create a lot of pollution in the air, water, and land. The pollution affects many humans health. Overpopulation is doing more harm than any other environmental issue. Overpopulation also causes many of the other issues we are dealing with. This is very dangerous to not only us humans but the planet. Even though many wealthy countries are not affected by this overpopulation, I feel like they should help the cause. There is always two sides to an issue like this. Some people don’t think that overpopulation is a big problem and the ones who say it is an issue that needs to be dealt with.

    Read More

More about Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

Open Document