A Modest Proposal Analysis Essay Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

In a modest proposal, swift vents his mounting aggravation at the ineptitude of ireland's politicians, the hypocrisy of the wealthy, the tyranny of the english, and the squalor and degradation in which he sees so many irish people living. While a modest proposal bemoans the bleak situation of an ireland almost totally subject to england's exploitation, it also expresses swift's utter disgust at the irish people's seeming inability to mobilize on their own behalf. Without excusing any party, the essay shows that not only the english but also the irish themselves and not only the irish politicians but also the masses are responsible for the nation's lamentable state. His compassion for the misery of the irish people is a severe one, and he includes a critique of their incompetence in dealing with their own problems. Political pamphleteering was a fashionable pastime in swift's day, which saw vast numbers of tracts and essays advancing political opinions and proposing remedies for ireland's economic and social ills. Swift's tract parodies the style and method of these, and the grim irony of his own solution reveals his personal despair at the failure of all this paper journalism to achieve any actual progress.

His piece protests the utter inefficacy of irish political leadership, and it also attacks the orientation of so many contemporary reformers toward economic utilitarianism. While swift himself was an astute economic thinker, he often expressed contempt for the application of supposedly scientific management ideas to humanitarian concerns. The main rhetorical challenge of this bitingly ironic essay is capturing the attention of an audience whose indifference has been well tested. Swift makes his point negatively, stringing together an appalling set of morally untenable positions in order to cast blame and aspersions far and wide.

The essay progresses through a series of surprises that first shocks the reader and then causes her to think critically not only about policies, but also about motivations and values. Jonathan swift’s use of satire and exaggeration satire is a form of literature in which an author tries to demonstrate his or her point of view by ridiculing. In this satirical essay, jonathan swift attacks on the issue of the irish poverty in the 1700s. The essay sarcastically suggests that ireland’s social and economic problems would be quickly solved by putting the children of impoverished irish families on the food market. Through heavy exaggeration, jonathan swift’s essay provides a good insight on the themes of ignorance, human greed, and human corruption.

Law Paper for Ias

However, his intention is for everyone, or anyone in the right mind, to see that his personal opinion is actually the opposite of what he writes in the essay. He wants to use irony to cause the readers to understand that he isn’t being serious at all. For example, he ironically explains his hopes that he will not be liable to the least objection swift 803. Another way he shows that he isn’t serious is with the title of the essay, a modest proposal. As the reader reads further into the essay, they see that swift’s proposal isn’t modest at all. Swift’s proposal is for the poor irish families to allow their own newborn children to be killed for food. His goal in this proposal is towards 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 801.

In detail, the plan proposed by swift is for families to contribute a majority of their children’s flesh as food for themselves, or a marketable good to butchers and tailors in order to bring money into their homes. He shows a lack of emotional attachment to the children in order to produce an opposite result with his audience. By causing horror in readers, the essay both helps them feel sympathy and pity for the largely poor irish population, and feel dislike for the ignorant narrator. He also wants people to understand that all of the people of england and ireland that are not in poverty are in fact greedy and corrupted. One way he does this is by saying innocent children are in fact the only ones guilty for the impoverishment of ireland.

Fsu Essay Help 2012

In order to do this, he refers to them by terms that make them seem disposable, such as bastard children 802. Although he says that the children are the ones responsible for the corruption, he expects the reader to understand that children are the ones that are least responsible for any types of social problems, because children lack any kind of power. By reading this essay, one would desire that the children wouldn’t be the victims of this corruption. They would rather the children and their parents to be helped by the ones that are actually responsible. Swift goes on to shock the readers by describing in detail what kind of disgusting things people would do to the flesh of the infants.

For example, he describes the variety of ways that the infants’ flesh can be cooked, such as being stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled 803. He also explains how the flesh of infants can be used as fabric for fashionable clothing, going on to say that it will make admirable gloves for ladies and summer boots for fine gentlemen swift 804. By planning practices of mutilation towards the babies, he really wants his audience to completely object to these plans, in order to show how precious the poor children of ireland really are. A modest proposal begins with an account of the impoverished state of many in ireland.

This proposal hopefully will decrease the number of abortions performed by poor mothers. The writer calculates the number of infants born in ireland and asks what should be done with them. He points out that they are unfit for any employment, being even too young to steal. Therefore, it seems like a good idea that the people of ireland simply eat the infants when they reach the age of one year. The writer treats the weight of an infant, what kind of dish it will make, and how many people it will serve. He surmises the times of year when the infants will be most plentiful, based on the purported sexual patterns of the irish.

How Do We Write An Argumentative Essay

There might also be uses for the discarded skin of the infants, such as for ladies’ gloves. A friend of the narrator’s, a very worthy person, has already heard the proposal and suggested that children of fourteen, too, be a potential food. The writer has dismissed this idea, though, because the flesh of fourteen year old boys is too lean, and fourteen year old girls might soon become breeders of infants themselves. He defends his friend, nevertheless, by saying that the friend learned of this practice in asia among certain savage peoples. This digression continues with the observation that he is unconcerned about those adults who are ill, disabled, or starving, because there is nothing he can do for them. Third, it will increase the nation’s overall wealth, since people will not have to pay for the upkeep of the children.

Sixth, it will enhance the institution of marriage as women take better care of their infants so that they may be sold, and men will take better care of their wives so that their wives can make more babies to sell. Swift then raises a potential objection to his proposal: that it will deplete ireland’s population. He says that this proposal will in no way encumber england, as the infants will not be able to be exported, as their flesh is not easily preserved for later consumption. He is not willing to entertain any other arguments for solving the problem, like virtue and thrift. Swift concludes by saying first that he would welcome any other suggestions anyone may have on this question, then assuring the reader that he has no personal economic stake in this idea because he has no children and therefore could not profit by selling them to be eaten. If you do not realize that this proposal is satirical, you have no sense of humor or irony.

Microbiology Unknown Research Papers