A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift’s article “A Modest Proposal” (1729) discusses Ireland’s ailments and how the English are oppressing the Irish. Swift discusses a possible solution to Ireland’s poverty, proposing a plan to sell off Irish babies to the English. Swift’s purpose by making this satirical proposal is to shock the English into seeing how oppressive they are, in order to bring about change in Ireland. The critical tone of Swift’s writing leads me to believe that this article is intended namely for the…

In Jonathan Swift`s A Modest Proposal, Swift expresses his soaring agitation with Ireland`s political leaders, the hypocrisy of the affluent, the despotism of the English, and the squalor in which he catches so many of his people living. Swift uses logos, visual imagery, and a desperate, satirical and serious tone to convey his thoughts. He demonstrates that a nation`s most significant problem can come from oppression in hopes that not only outsiders but that other Irish people will stand up and…

The welfare of human beings as members of a community has historically been addressed in a variety of literary forms. Jonathan Swift in his essay “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country”(The Art of Writing:A modern Rhetoric,edited by Cosmo Ferrara, Random House, 1981, pp 155-170) employed savage irony to present his societal commentary. Written in 1729 to expose the tragic condition of the lower class, the satire attempts to…

reaction in their readers. In A Modest Proposal, wrote by Swift, is a clear example of a satirical pamphlet. Due to the arise of the journalism and the newspapers, pamphlets became quite popular at that time, and Swift uses this layout to give his proposal more relevance and importance, and to take it serious, like the information in any other pamphlet. The satire is explicit right from the first moment you read it. Just the title and the subtitle, A Modest Proposal for preventing the Children…

Swift’s Essay, entitled A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country and for making them beneficial to the public focuses on the ills that befell the society. The author uses satire to highlight the issues in the society and he proposes a radical solution. The thesis of…

the events or narrate the actual facts. For instance, Jonathan Swift denounces, in his work A Modest Proposal, Ireland’s submission to England and the economic situation in the country. Swift presents an extreme position with a logical conclusion. He proposes to sell the children of poor people as food for the wealthy in order to solve the problems of poverty in Ireland. Unlike Swift’s A Modest Proposal, Dubliners reflects the daily life of different individuals, their failures, their…

In clergyman Johnathan Swift’s essay, A Modest Proposal, Swift presents a proposal that small children should be sold for food. Swift supports his proposal by providing examples of how selling the small children would be beneficial, describing how his proposed system would be set up, and also by supporting his proposal with logical evidence that shows he spent time creating a well-crafted argument. Swift’s purpose is to present an absurd proposal in order to show how absurd the poverty level in…

Williams-Ferguson English 1301 October 28, 2014 A Modest Proposal A Modest Proposal, written by Jonathan Swift, is an admirable illustration of the sharp intelligence and raw mockery that was engaged in the satire of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From side to side, the current use of cynical judgments and biting overstatements, Swift managed to execute his wittiness in a style that was practically unique in collected works of writing. In “A Modest Proposal”, Swift successfully…

and to top it off “the English [were] devouring the poor” (pg 1199). In Jonathan Swifts essay “A Modest Proposal” he cleverly uses satire to shine light on the way the Irish are being viewed as commodities and not people. Satire is defined by using humor and irony to criticize people’s stupidity usually about politics. Swifts argument is so believable because he has facts that support his proposal and what he thinks the outcome will look like and by clearly developing the image of the world…

“A Modest Proposal” is a satirical essay written by satirist Jonathan Swift in 1729. The purpose of his essay is to bring attention to serious social problems in eighteenth century Ireland, and he does so by proposing a shocking solution to the readers of his essay. However, in order to numb the shock of his proposition he gradually sets up the reader for his controversial ideas in the first six paragraphs. Swift uses several rhetorical strategies such as use of invective language, building…