Author of A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift has a different writing style than most writers. In A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift has a sarcastic tone. He is tired of the U.S. government not taking poverty seriously and takes a different approach than anyone would expect. His “proposal” is to eat children under two years old to prevent them from becoming a burden to their parents. A Modest Proposal shows a different perspective on the government and selfish people with money.
Jonathan Swift was born into a poor family that included his mother (Abigail) and his sister (Jane). His father, a noted clergyman in England, had died seven months before Jonathan's birth. There is not much known of Swift's childhood, and what is reported is not always
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In The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit (1704), Swift continues his satiric attack on both questionable religious views and questionable knowledge acquisition, particularly scientific knowledge. In Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, Swift shares his reactions to the Test Act, a law enacted by Charles II, requiring office holders to declare their allegiance to the king over the church. The Journal to Stella (1710-1713), a series of letters written by Swift to Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley, includes the poem "The Windsor Prophecy," a satirical attack on the person and personality of the Duchess of Somerset, Queen Anne's red-haired attendant who did not care for Swift because of disparaging remarks Swift had written about her family. "Gulliver's Travels." Jonathan Swift Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. …show more content…
Swift was able to grasp his audience’s attention through A Modest Proposal by satire; essentially he was fed up with the ineptitude of Ireland’s politicians, the degrading poverty in which an overwhelming number of Irish citizens found themselves, the boisterous tyranny of the British, and the hypocrisy of the wealthy. Swift expressed his disgust with the current state of Ireland and proposed that both the English, as well as the Irish, were to blame for the nation’s state. Swift’s essay was organized by presenting an immediate shock to the audience, suggesting that the nation should harvest the impoverished people’s babies for eating. After the initial shock, Swift presented a series of surprises that caused the audience to critically think about the current government policies and the true crisis in which the country found
His very different tones throughout “A Modest Proposal” helps the reader realize that the essay’s idea is absurd. Swifts tone at the beginning of the essay is very sympathetic towards the people of Ireland, but his sympathy hastily goes away when he suggests his idea. Swift changes the tone of the essay so drastically it shocks the readers by making “A Modest Proposal” very ironic to its name.
Swift defined satire as; 'A sort of glass wherein the holders do generally discover everybody's face but their own, which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it. " Swift presents his "Proposal" as an entirely reasonable suggestion to aid the Irish, he enumerates the many benefits, counters the objections many may have, uses rhetoric reasoning and proves his humanitarianism views. Swift has written in considerable detail over the degree of poverty in Ireland, he draws attention to the causes of it obliquely and proves in great detail that his "Proposal" will work and in which ways it does work. Ireland was a colony of England; it was economically, politically and militarily dependent on ... ... middle of paper ... ...
Jonathan Swift says that the people, politicians, and English are all at fault for the terrible state and poverty of Ireland. Swift states that if a poor infant passes the dangerous years of childhood, they would “leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain” or “they would sell themselves to the Barbados,” as indentured servants.
In the time frame that Swifts’ A Modest Proposal was written Ireland was going through political, economic, and religious struggles. In 1729 England had contrived, with the help of Irish venality, to wreck Ireland’s merchant marine, agriculture, and wool industry. Prostitutes in Swift’s paper are having kids like senseless people, but yet they can’t afford to feed them. Jonathan Swift proposes that his people should sell the babies and eat them. He thinks this would help solve the problem of over population. Swift tried to give his people pamphlets on how to fix the problem that was plaguing their country, but they ignored them. Swift says “These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants.”(1) Swift proposes that the mothers sell the babies for 8 shillings; the rich would find the child to be a delicacy and the extra money would go to the landlord. So everyone would benefit from this proposal. He does this as a way of making his people aware of what is going on in their
The dilemma Swift addresses is the way the Irish are being oppressed by the English. At the time, most people were farmers with small pay and had extreme difficulty paying their landlords. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, is a satirical writer that attempts to persuade the people of England into finding a solution to fix the poor problem. He structures his essay, by first stating outrageous solutions to the poor problem; such as selling, and eating children or using them for clothes, until the end where he suggested real solutions. His outrageous assumptions of eating children seem barbaric, but it captures the audience attention to the p...
In Swift’s satirical essay he stated the main issue to be the hunger and starvation of Irish country and their lack of money to support oneself. He said the complication was they themselves don’t have food, to many families in poverty, and that the Englishman took their land and charging high prices for rent. Swift makes this argument because he too is an Irish men and he struggles to see his fellow men parish in the streets. He desires his people to stand up against England and take back what’s theirs. He argues that the Irish...
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, the setting of his satirical piece “A Modest Proposal”, which criticized the conditions that the poor citizens of Dublin faced. Before he wrote “A Modest proposal” one of his first pieces was “Miscellanies in Prose and Verse”. Though this piece was not satirical, from the beginning, Jonathan wrote about the problems that were faced in society, and suggested some proposals in hopes to solve these problems. As a child, Jonathan swift was raised with his mother in Dublin. Since she was a single mother, she often had to turn to other people for financial support. Though the famine that Jonathan swift talked about in his piece “A Modest Proposal” wasn’t as prevalent during his childhood, he was able experience some form of poverty.
Taking back in 1972, Dr. Jonathan Swift, an Anglo-Irish essayist, argues in his satire, “A Modern Proposal,” the economic issues within Dublin, the capital of Ireland, which consists of poverty and overpopulation, consequently, creating a dreadful blanket over the society as a whole. Swift then decides to provide an ironic metaphorically inhumane solution, by one of which, highlights the matter at hand in Dublin, Ireland. He achieves this by using the following rhetorical devices: diction to express the unimportance of the poor and gruesome actions used towards them, allusion to refer to a similar practice such as cannibalism, and hyperbole to give the solution a horrid effect in hopes of introducing it in a greater understanding.
In the essay, A Modest Proposal, the speaker is Jonathan Swift. Swift is most known for his satirist writing style which is also evident in his novel called Gulliver's Travels. Swift was an intelligent Oxford graduate student who published his famous piece, A Modest Proposal, in 1729. In this piece he addresses the issue of poverty in Ireland by proposing a humorous solution. The purpose of his text is to shock his audience by his over the top solution to end poverty. Swift adopts a persuasive tone in his proposal to convey his readers that his solution would be beneficial.
If Jonathan Swift had written a serious piece simply espousing his true beliefs he would not have received as much feedback, due to the fact that there were already informational advertisements at the time and nobody was interested in reading them. The only thing that would get the people 's attention was something that would create a lasting impression, so he wrote a satirical piece with trenchant humor and mochary. “A Modest Proposal” surprised people and got them thinking about the condition of the poor in Ireland and what should be done to solve it. For example Swift states that “those who are thrifty” can use the carcass of the infant for ladies’ gloves or gentlemen’s boots. This itself can help those reading the piece to begin to think about possible solutions to the substantial issues involving the poor in Ireland. He also proposes that children that are fourteen should be consumed as well so the poor don’t have to go hungry and that it would limit the number of breeders, in an attempt to illustrate the extremity of the circumstances. His sarcastic way of joking enlisted fear in the poor and concern in the rich, helping them realise the drastic issue present in the
Jonathan Swift is a well-known author and satirist who graduated from Oxford University in England. He is very educ...
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.
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 Writings of Jonathan Swift; Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism. edited by Robert A. Greenberg and William Bowman Piper. Norton Critical Editions. New York: Norton, 1973.
Swift wrote ‘a Modest Proposal’ to draw peoples attention to the discrimination against Irish Catholics. I will now consider the use of satire in swift’s text a ‘Modest Proposal’ five satirical techniques: unexpected words, exaggeration, reversing what is expected, and odd or inappropriate comparison or analogy and finally to start off believable. An example of this is ‘ it is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town’ this is a believable start to the book. It makes it sound like a biography, another example is when he mentions about eating babies ‘a healthy young child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.’ This turns the book around. This makes people want to read on because of that one line.