A Modest Proposal “A Modest Proposal” is a satirical work written by Jonathan Swift that gives an unorthodox and outrageous solution to Ireland’s poverty and overpopulation problem. Jonathan Swift was most famous for his satires and he was also a famous churchman, a spokesperson for Irish rights, and a political journalist. Swift gives a list of absurd solutions which include cannibalism and poor Irish families fattening up their children for the purpose of selling them to rich English…
The article “How Elmo Ruined Sesame Street” by Kevin Wong, is an article where Kevin attempts to make his argument on how he believes Elmo ruined the show “Sesame Street." Kevin also includes the use of secondary arguments in order to act as support for his main argument. Kevin implements many writing practices in his article that are meant to sway people towards his side of the argument. Kevin presents his argument by using two of the three rhetorical proofs, logos and ethos, and by…
A Modest Proposal is an essay by Jonathan Swift of the 18th century. It is a satirical essay that talks about an argument that says infant children should be sold for their meat. Ireland needs a simple solution to help its poor population. The streets of Ireland are full of beggars, and they are mostly women beggars with children that struggle to find something to eat. The poor parents in Ireland spend all their time trying to find something to feed their large families. Even with all the…
In the essay A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift written in 1729, a proposal is demonstrated by Jonathan for preventing the children of unfinancially stable people in ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and making them beneficial to the public. As sarcastic and unproportionately disturbing his suggestions are, poverty had a key role into the written essay proving exaggerated solutions to add humor and his own personality to grab attention from readers so they can address…
In the satirical piece “A Modest Proposal” (1729), Jonathan Swift addresses the troubling economic and social conditions in Ireland. He adopts a persona, known by scholars as the Proposer, who suggests a “fair, cheap, and easy Method” to rid Ireland of poverty (Swift 230). Instead of proposing a logical and practical solution, however, the Proposer offers a horrifying plan: selling the babies of poverty-stricken families into the food market to lessen the number of beggars on the street. With…
a 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…
Poverty is a prevalent issue in society, not having enough to support one’s family and struggling to just survive is universal. What if there was a way to fix that? Dr. Jonathan Swift proposes an interesting idea in his pamphlet A Modest Proposal to satiate the impoverished nation of Ireland during the 18th century. He begins by identifying the problem: the massive population of beggars. These beggars have too many children to feed and not enough money to care for them. Then he moves on to his…
In “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift proposes an absurd solution to poverty in Ireland in 1729. Swift begins the essay by describing his observations of the plight of the poor and how he has thought long and hard about a solution for the widespread poverty. He then proposes his bizarre idea – for the poor to sell their children at one year old – and uses misguided logic to support his proposal. Mimicking the format of a pamphlet proposing an unreasonable solution, Swift parodies the useless…
time, political pamphlets were distributed throughout Ireland to promote the ideas of various intellectuals but many discarded them (Cody). Jonathan Swift took advantage of the overlooked pamphlets and constructed an outrageous proposal in 1729. “A Modest Proposal” offered an unimaginable but surprisingly logical solution to these problems of food shortage and human misery. Jonathan Swift originated from a poor background. He was an…
Nancy Scheper-Hughes paints a vivid picture of the village folk living in “Ballybran”, once vital, now desolate and isolated by lack of economic opportunity and diminishing population growth. As a psychological anthropologist, she seeks deeper answers, attempting to identify psychological and cultural root causes of anomie and despair in the people living in rural Ireland. She explains multiple reasons for both their anomie and extremely high rates of mental illness which lie in shrinking…