During the early 1700s, Ireland experienced economic and social turmoil— unemployment was high, Ireland was experiencing a social class war, and lower class families struggled to obtain food. Renowned author, Jonathan Swift, sarcastically proposes that the country set a quota of 100,000 children to be set aside as a food supply. Swift’s over exaggerated proposal is a subliminal message to the Irish Government that has done nothing to mend the factious and fractured social classes and economy of their country. Throughout “A Modest Proposal,” Swift theorizes a process analysis of the system and social conventions that would be established if Ireland were actually to resort to cannibalism. In his sarcasm, Swift uses many instances of over exaggeration, similes, and parables to convey his obscured message about government reformation. Swift begins …show more content…
Swift continues this provocation, addressing the “more thrifty” people who “may flay the carcass” and use the skin in order to make “gloves for ladies” and “summer boots for fine gentlemen.” Swift uses a simile to compare preparing children by “dressing them hot from the knife, as [done when] roasting pigs.” Swift uses this simile to exaggerate what a simple and traditional part of the diet children would be in Ireland. In essence, Swift yearns to provoke the Irish people to fight for social equality and a mended economy—the only manner of achieving this equality and shared wealth is by government
The "Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is a very persuasive essay to get attention to the famine in Ireland at the time. * The structure of the essay is well done. Organization gets you hooked before it proposes the topic of eating the children of Ireland.
In 1729 the conditions in Ireland became increasingly bad for the Irish. Wealthy English had purchased about 90% of the land in Ireland. The English landlords raised the rents making it harder for the Irish tenant farmers to pay rent let alone clothes and feed their family. Swift came up with a crazy proposal more as a metaphor not to be taken seriously. Swift was implying that the English was getting fatter and fatter, (wealth wise) and the Irish was getting thinner and thinner (poorer).
Swift’s attitude throughout “A Modest Proposal,” although satiric, is for the soul purpose of achieving his goal of reform for his
Swift’s message revolved around bringing awareness to the problem that many Irish families were facing, which was poverty. However, the government was a major issue because they were not taking the conflict of poverty seriously. Although Swift's message is intended to be serious, he conveys his idea in a satirical manner to get the attention of the readers and get his message across. Through his message, Swift proposes his idea to bake children and eat them as a source of food to minimize having to feed them and care for them. Eventually, the author wants his readers to realize and understand that the idea he is proposing is composed of satire and that he intends to make fun of the heartless and uncaring attitude towards the
The two arguments at hand are- “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor and A Modest Proposal.” Lifeboat Ethics is written by author Garrett Hardin. Hardin is known for his theory of “the tragedy of the commons.” Hardin’s ironic approach made the reader become disconnected while reading the article.
Although Swift obviously decided to take a different approach of giving his satirical view about the Irish government and people and the route things had taken, his forever known proposal on fixing the issue will always be known to the Ireland community. Even though it is still debated on what Swift may have truly expected on getting out of such a disturbing proposal, it can be agreed that the attention from the Ireland people was one of them. Upsetting numerus amounts of people swift can stilled be titled brave and courageous from his proposal. It is still believed by many however, that Swift’s proposal was to express his personal dislike for the Ireland people, but this as well can be argued. The initial idea however from Swifts work is that he took his literature expertise into his own beneficial use.
In this “proposal”, Swift is suggesting something most people could not even imagine. Considering the “present distress of the kingdom”, his solution is to take the poor children of Ireland and nurse them for a year to fatten them up for the source of selling them for food. He is signifying that these children are a burden to their parents and country, and by doing this in turn they would become beneficial. By using the form of satire he goes into detail of the calculations on how many babies they would actually have at the end of the year by counting for the ones that would unexpectedly die. When talking about the actually cannibalism he says, “young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food; whether stewed, roasted, baked or broiled.”
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
The ideas he proposes such as selling children like objects, eating them like food, and murdering them are all illogical thinking. Selling, eating, and murdering children clearly does not solve the problem of poverty, nor would any reasonably sane person propose such solutions. For example, Swift indicates in paragraph five that his proposal will eradicate abortions and the murdering of children by their mothers, “There is likewise another great Advantage in my Scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary Abortions, and that horrid practice of Women murdering their Bastard Children, alas (Swift, 2). There is no logical indication that taking children living in poverty away from their mothers and subjecting them to being bred, cooked, and sold is in anyway going to reduce abortion. Swift tells the reader that he is the sole expert on this subject using an appeal to authority to make his argument contain more validity, however he fails to back this up with any sincere ethical appeals that help further
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.
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 using their skins as a fashion accessory; however, ultimately this proposal was not his true goal. Jonathan Swift skillfully used different styles of writing, such as imagery and irony, to show why the
Such as the solution he gives for the economic problems of Ireland, ‘“Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses”’ (Swift 1). Swift’s solution is so ridiculous it’s funny. His solution is to feed the children and once they get ripe they are fed to the rich.
Swift uses a speaker to portray the message he was trying to relay. Swift, as the author, does not believe in the words that are in A Modest Proposal, whereas the speaker is confident in his
Swift’s proposal in particular, was effective since it led the people of Ireland, as well as the government,
Swift uses his satire as a way to draw attention to daily conditions that many families in Ireland are suffering from. His extreme plan of eating children is used as a way to draw the attention of the government towards helping improve the economy. By using irony Swift is able to help make his plan a more believable solution to invoke change. Even today Swift 's plan can be seen as a persuasive technique, using logic and statistics to convince the