Mazin Abbas 900140098 Dr Motawy Rhet 1010 Imagined Worlds: Utopias and Dystopias 8 October 2014 A modest combination of literary techniques A satirical essay so ridiculous that people start taking the ideas behind it seriously? That sounds like something out of a fictional tale. Well it is not, this essay exists and is written by a man named Jonathan Swift. Jonathan Swift was an influential Irish poet and writer in the 1700s. Born to an Irish aristocratic family, Swift received a great education and went on to work in England. At the time, Ireland greatly suffered from poor work wages and extreme trade embargos and taxes put upon them by England. Irish workers were paid extremely low wages by English landowners because they believed that …show more content…
Swift, throughout the essay, illustrates the children as animals by using metaphors that relate to that. The first example is on the second page of Swift’s essay in which he states “A child just dropped from its dam.” (Swift, 2) This metaphor is typically used to describe animals being born but instead Swift uses it to describe children being born. Another example of Swift using metaphors in his essay is when he states that “I grant this food will be somewhat dear… as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.” (Swift, 3) Swift does not mean that the landowners literally devoured the parents but rather financialy devoured them and therefore they have some sort of right to also devour the children. The use of these metaphors creates a sort of depersonalization of the children and treats them as inanimate objects rather than …show more content…
Economic analysis used by Swift includes exact numbers and economic definitions which add a sort of credibility to his essay. Aside from the satire and metaphors, economic analysis and reasoning make this essay seem extremely credible. This makes the reader not take Swift’s proposal as a joke but rather see it from a satirical point of view. If the entire essay was made up of jokes and far-fetched proposals, Swift’s audience would find it hard to understand and rather uninteresting. Swift uses this to demonstrate his understanding of the subject
The author’s foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism help convey the idea that family is more important than money or material possessions. The author uses irony of saying their life is happy because they have a lot of money, although they are not living a happy life shows that you do not need money to live a happy life, money cannot buy happiness. The children acting wild and powerful is because they symbolize the lions that killed their parents. If the children get to carried away and not pay attention to their family, they will shut them out of their lives. Also, when the parents found a wallet with lion saliva on it, that foreshadows there will soon be danger, which was their death.
Concluding with the statement that the proposal is no use to him because he lacks the age appropriate children to eat. Not only did he write about this subject but also thought about how it would apply to his life. *It brought Ireland to the forefront of the public news in Britain, when something had to be done about the famine. This shocking way brought the attention to everyone, not just the throne and landlords.
When it came to Ethos, Swift was not quite as persuasive as he could have been. He does have a background when it comes to writing about corrupt governments in tales such as “Gulliver’s Travels.” The way Swift wrote this essay, however, makes it feel slightly less objective. Even when he is writing from the point of a wealthier Irishman, his overall tone shows a large amount of contempt towards the higher economic classes. Instead of allowing the readers to read alternative arguments on this subject, he focused strictly on his own opinion.
Swifts text was effective in using ethos, logos, and satire to convince the English to do more to address the issues of Ireland. Swift used ethos by showing he was a well-educated, and thoughtful man. He shows us when reading the text, we see the way he uses his words. With the phrase “having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors…” (Jonathan Swift, 356) it shows that he thought a lot about this topic. Swift explained that selling Ireland's children would help with many problems Irelands families are having.
In fact, he refers to “A very worthy Person, a true Lover of his Country, and whose Virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on this matter, to offer a refinement upon my Scheme”(17). As a result, Swift shows that even the most patriotic person to both Ireland and Britain (since Ireland was under British control at the time) realizes that within this current situation of poverty, this proposal is a solution and can be acted out in many different
Mohammed Ismail AP Language Composition Lyons, William December 9, 2014 Rhetorical Devices Used in Jonathan Swifts Modest Proposal The essay Modest Proposal, written by Jonathan Swift perhaps known better for his novel Gulliver’s travels wrote this piece, because during his time he addressed solutions to many contemporary social issues by writing them on pamphlets. Swift’s main purpose in writing this essay is to avert children from being less of a problem to their parents and the public. The author tries not addressing his subject directly, children, instead Swift introduces the concept of a market, livestock, breeders, etc., to address the overcrowding and poverty stricken children in Dublin, Ireland.
In the end of the story the kids have so much anger towards their parents they are willing to do anything to get becak their technology and the nursery. The kids are so mad that they even are willing to kill their own parents. “Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and they turned and looked back at the beasts edging slowly forward crouching, tails stiff. Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed.” This passage shows that the kids killed their parents because they did not want them to turn off the nursery.
Rhetorical Analysis Essay: A Modest Proposal Dr. Jonathan Swift places himself as a villain who is willing to do evil deeds to answer hard questions. What pushes Swift to write the essay “A Modest Proposal” is Ireland's economic and social problems. In this satirical essay Swift highlights the problems in Ireland and gives a sarcastic solution to make people feel guilt. Swift’s use of dehumanizing language is used to make the reader oppose Swift’s modest proposal.
In ‘’ The Stolen Child ‘’and ‘’ Cats in the Cradle ‘’ they both involve ruin of childhood innocence. In ‘’ The Stolen Child ‘’ it states ‘’ for he comes the human child, to the waters and the wind, with a faery hand in
This example points out that the upper classes’ fine dress is coming at the expense of the lower class. Swift used imagery as an underlying factor, so the government and other readers would not be able to commit to the proposal because Swift really doesn’t want the proposal to
1729, a Papist infected Ireland was being devoured by the taxes that the British placed on them. The taxes were turning into what once was a glorious place into ruins. Jonathan Swift, an Englishman and Irish sympathizer, realized that someone had to do something to wake up the British. This lead to the creation of A Modest Proposal, a pamphlet heavy with irony and juvenalian satire, which was how Jonathan Swift planned on compelling the British to do something about the poor situation in Ireland. His use of rhetorical devices gets his point across in an effective and powerful way.
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a very interesting take on how the Irish government should cure the famine that the country was then facing. However, the entire proposal was completely bizarre, and the whole point of the essay was to bring attention to the idea that they needed a solution to the all the problems they were experiencing but the proposal was definitely not it. He even had a strongly developed plan as to how his proposal would work which makes the reader feel as if he is serious about selling children, eating them, and/or using their skins as a fashion accessory; however, ultimately this proposal is not his true goal. Jonathon Swift skillfully used different styles of writing, such as imagery and irony, to show why the Irish should sell their children to the rich to eat.
The passage effectively shows the development of the characters using strong figurative language such as imagery ,metaphors, similes and word choice. The children wanted to see the sun for the first time in forever which was supposedly coming out today according to Margot, but they were so skeptical and angry,so they savagely locked her in a closet just as the sun was
Swift 's writing still has relevance to the modern world. Even through his ideas are absolutely ridiculous they can be argued as being logical. Using statistics of this plan, such as the cost of raising a baby for a year, average number of child bearing women and the price that a child sold into to slavery would be, Swift 's arguments for his proposal can be seen as logical and well supported by statistics. This technique of persuading people by using statistics, could be used by politicians to get supporters to side with a ridiculous idea.
Jonathan Swift speaks to the political and economic strife of England and surrounding countries across Europe through his writing. His commentary through prose works had influence on varying social levels in eighteenth-century English society, which projected his political hopes for Britain. Through prose works, Swift carefully establishes the persona of the narrator, who tells their tale, proposing these characters with particular traits and mannerism which serve the larger purpose of the novel genre. Swift, as Daniel Defoe once speculated, detests the novel form because of its: “individualistic psychology; its brief for class mobility; its delight in a burgeoning of the British economy; its adjustable ethics and morality; its increasing