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Relationship between history and literature
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If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal. This is an example of satire because; it uses sarcasm to undermine democracy. A satire is a use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. Satires is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. The Modest Proposal is a satire that talks about ways we can use Roman Catholic babies by eating them, selling them.
Even though, Swift story was a satire, swift still made lots of sense. The reason I said that is because, the English colony goes to other countries, and take everything over. They also take their land and then sell it back to them for profit. This makes other colonies poor, and most people ends up starving or catching a disease, and dying from it. So why not take the kids from the other countries and eat them; you killing them anyways why not speed up the process. This is what John Swift was trying to say, but in a satirical way. All in all, the only way to stop all the problems is to establish your colony, and give the other colonies their land and freedom back.
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Furthermore, the reason Swift is so satirical is because he is a believer in the good, and being good to human beings.
If you read the essay he talks about how he wants to sell the babies flesh for profit, and put the babies on a platter so he can serve them like a hot pig. This is saying that if you treat the Irish like animals you should eat them like animals. To sum up, Swift is not saying lets eat children; he is saying they need to change the way they treat other colonies, or they should just should eat them because, they going to die out
anyways. To summarize, satires are great ways to show people how much of a monster they are. Our society use satires to make political cartoons. We need satires to make light of situations that’s happening right now in our community. The modest proposal is a satire that is meant to solve a problem that was happening in the 17th century. On the other hand, most of our satires try to make fun of serious problems we are having right now in our society. If satires weren’t used people will never have a bright side to a problem or think about in other ways.
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?
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 to 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. 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's message to the English government in "A Modest Proposal" deals with the disgusting state of the English-Irish common people. Swift, as the narrator expresses pity for the poor and oppressed, while maintaining his social status far above them. The poor and oppressed that he refers to are Catholics, peasants, and the poor homeless men, women, and children of the kingdom. This is what Swift is trying to make the English government, in particular the Parliament aware of; the great socioeconomic distance between the increasing number of peasants and the aristocracy, and the effects thereof. Swift conveys his message in a brilliant essay, in which he uses satire, humor and shock value.
Therefore, before an analysis can continue, one has to make the assumption that this is strictly a fictional work and Swift had no intention of pursuing his proposal any further. One of the other voices that is present throughout the entire story is that of sarcasm. In order to understand this further, a reader has to comprehend that Swift, becoming infamous after Gullivers Travels, was a member of the upper-class. Right from the first paragraph, Swift attempts to fool his readers by the sarcasm of the dreary scene that Swift presents. For example, he mentions that it is a melancholy sight to see beggars and their children on the street.
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.
It should shock them into lowering taxes and decreasing the cost of shelter. Jonathan Swift uses irony and sarcasm to hint at his essay not being serious, and uses his writing skills to try and solve a serious problem. And of course, the solution Swift is actually looking for, is not about eating babies.
The main issue Swift is trying to touch on is the overpopulation of beggars within Ireland. This happened because of the poor having numerous children, and both the higher class of Ireland and England not doing anything to aid them. Swift creates an unbiased opinion because of his upbringings; he was born in Dublin, was raised in England, and attended Trinity College in Ireland. He is trying to aim the piece towards both countries because he experienced the severe conditions Ireland was enduring. The piece is satirical to outrage and capture the attention of readers. The assumption Swift reveals is that Ireland will want to change from this piece.
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.
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. He wanted to shock his readers by proposing his “modest” proposal. He presents selling babies as food to reduce overpopulation. This causes the reader to disregard this suggestion. Swift wanted to raise awareness on the issue that was haunting Ireland. Throughout A Modest Proposal, Swift effectively uses verbal irony, diction, and sentence structure to achieve his purpose of making people realize that there are problems in society that needed to be handled in a reasonable manner. He also wanted to help advance the country’s trade, provide for infants, relieve the poor and help the rich. Swift ultimately wanted to get people thinking about actual solutions that could solve their current problems.
The use of detailed satire is very evident in A Modest Proposal. A writer’s hand
Swift used disgust to describe how the young children will be prepared. Swift stated “that a young healthy child well nurse, is... a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust” (4). Another example that Swift used was how some people would skin the young children and use it as clothing. “Those who are more thrifty may flea the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen” (6). The frustration part of it was towards the higher authorities. Swift obviously cared about the people of Ireland to create this essay. Swift states that “who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets… crowded with beggars” (1). The capital of Ireland is “crowded with beggars” and the higher authorities is not doing about this problem. Swift is at least trying to find a solution to solve this problem by making this proposal. By making the readers disgusted and frustrated, Swift strengthen his proposal because he wants to show and to do something about this
The idea of eating all the youth in the country is obviously self-defeating and is not being seriously suggested by the writer. He is simply trying to show how desperate the lower class is in Ireland. Swift introduces the reforms he is actually suggesting, taxing absentee landlords, of encouraging the domestic economy by buying Irish goods, of discouraging pride, vanity, idleness, by dismissing them in his essay by saying that they are impractical. However, these reforms greatly differ from his ?modest proposal? because instead of the poor sacrificing their children, it would involve the rich sacrificing some of their luxuries. He is trying to point out the fact that reforms that would be practical and beneficial to the people of Ireland are being overlooked for the convenience of the rich.
The entire proposal stands as a satire in itself; an analogy paralleling the tyrannical attitude of the British toward their Irish counterparts and the use of babies as an economic commodity. In short, Swift suggests that Irish parents are owned by the British, and babies are property of their parents, therefore, England has a right to consume the Irish babies. Swift uses this syllogism to show the British that their despotic reign in Ireland has left the miserable nation in poverty and disarray. Historically, it has been evidenced that England first colonized Ireland for security against, at that time, the Irish barbarians that inhabited the land. Thus, England continues to justify their power over Ireland as “restraining the temptation to consume among England's enemies” (Mahoney). Along with “the assurance of English military power to defend the colony from threat,” the degree of “English political and economic control that the colonists deeply resented,” grew exponentially into a full blown autocracy over Ireland (Mahoney). Swift writes, “Some persons of a desponding nature are in great concern.” This is not simply a concern ...
Swift wrote his proposal for those that were tired of looking at poor children of Ireland. He starts out explaining the situation in Ireland regarding single poor mothers that have three to six children and cannot afford to feed or clothe them. The children of the poor are a burden and a disgrace for Ireland. He suggests that a certain number of the kids be set aside for breeding and the rest be auctioned off for consumption when they reach a year old. Swift backs his proposal with six key points. One, there will be a reduction of "papists" in the country. Two, the poor will have some valuable assets to help them with their economic needs. Three, the new goods will burst economy. Four, the parent/s will gain money and will not have to support their children year after year. Five, "would bring great custom to taverns." Six, there would be a greater incentive to marry and better child rearing practices.
“A Modest Proposal,” by Dr. Jonathan Swift is a poem of seven paragraphs which describes a proposal “to prevent children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden to their parents and country and making them beneficial to the public” (Swift 430). Swift uses satire throughout the whole poem to emphasize the problem of overpopulation. He uses irony, reversal, understatement, incongruity and other techniques to get an emotional reaction from the audience, prompting a political or social change.