Rhetorical Devices In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

When A Modest Proposal was published, or to give it’s full name "A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public." England dominated the whole of Ireland. English landlords owned much of Ireland’s property, Charging ridiculous amounts for rent to poor tenants who could barely afford to pay. England imposed extremely high taxes on Ireland and the English laws which restricted Irish trade made it impossible for the country to ever prosper. In general, the English had, at this time, a negative attitude towards Irish people, and Roman Catholics which most Irish people were. This knowledge is important when reading and understanding this piece. Without knowing a little about the political and social state at this time, it may be difficult to pick up on Swift’s use of satire. However the piece itself, even the full title does educate the reader to an extent, talking about different social classes and focusing particularly on the poor in Ireland. This essay purports to be neither decisive nor conclusive, but merely attempts to assess the importance on the historical content of “A Modest Proposal” in order to see if it is a required element when trying to understand the piece.

Johnathan Swift wrote Modest Proposal with the idea to better humanity.. When you first read it you miss what the true message is. You think “Man this guy is a monster!” or “He’s sick!”, but once you reach the end the true meaning of the proposal hits you. When Jonathan Swift wrote a Modest Proposal he tried to get his audience to see the problem by taking it and providing an unethical and inhumane solution then using rhetorical devices to bring out people’s emotions.

Swift’s satirical essay is meant to underline the problems of both the English and the Irish in 1729. He argues that children at the age of one could be sold

In Jonathan Swift’s essay, A Modest Proposal (1729), Swift puts forth a proposal that would over “fix” Ireland’s issue of poor children and women at the time. His proposal was to start eating kids when they were born, so they would not wind up on the streets. Throughout his essay, he uses statistical data, appeal to marriage, and use of repetition to persuade his audience that his proposal will be a good idea.

Overall, Swift is also using irony by relating this unheard of cruelty to babies to cruelty animals. He suggests that buying children alive and “dressing them hot from the knife as we do roasting pigs” (411) is the best way to serve them. This was intended to tell the audience that the Protestants are basically treating the Catholics like animals with no regard to life. This carefully crafted technique lets the reader see how malicious the Protestants are actually being, and that they are killing Catholic babies alive by ruining any chance at a good life. Swift did not actually mean for people to go out and cook babies like pigs to get the most satisfactory, he simply meant that if you are going to treat them like pigs, you might as well eat them like pigs. If the people of Britain can’t see that through adults, maybe

In “A Modest Proposal”, published in 1729, satirist Jonathan Swift composes a proposal in which he suggests that the Irish could ease their economic troubles by selling babies to the meat industries to be prepared as food for rich to enjoy. Swift's purpose is to draw attention and raise awareness to the issues of poverty in Ireland. He adopts a satirical tone in order to give prominence to these economical problems and to warn that if Ireland doesn’t come together as a nation, their problems will continue to fall downhill. Swift begins his proposal with a melancholy image as an appeal to pathos, then builds his credibility of ethos by stating personal facts and tops it off with an appeal to logos as he includes his own statistical data to help support his reasoning. These 3 factors are essential in contributing to develop Swift’s argument and allows his proposal to become more plausible toward his audience, the community of Ireland.

A Modern Proposal – A Satirical, Persuasive, MockeryPeople will always have an opinion. It is easy to judge and express our distaste to specificsituations but very few would actually offer solutions to the problem. Jonathan Swift not only offered several solutions but he did it in such a way that others couldn’t help but listen, or in this case, couldn’t stop reading. Born in Ireland in 1667, Jonathan Swift was an Anglican priest. He was best known for his use of irony, exaggeration, and humor, often addressing the English and their never-ending exploitation of the Irish. During a time of terrible poverty, Swift wrote A Modest Proposal in the form of a pamphlet in 1729. Meant as a way to show people that they had not come up with relevant or effective solutions to solve the most prominent social issues of overpopulation, poverty, and abortion. Through a horrifying sarcastic idea of cannibalism, Swift is able to get his point across by presenting inhumane and unethical “solutions” to the Irish. Set in the poverty stricken Irish countryside, A Modern Proposal is filled with sarcasm, vivid imagery, and irony from the very beginning. Swift immediately addresses the problem of poverty by talking about the begging mothers with multiple children on the street. He vividlyportrays for the reader, the melancholy that runs through the streets by seeing all the women and children dressed in ragged clothing. He also mentions them begging people as they pass by. He sees a problem with the

The second application can be applied to anyone with a conscience, not just mothers, and is prevalent throughout the essay as Swift writes about the benefits of the slaughter of babies, with an example being “Many other advantages might be enumerated: For Instance, the addition of some thousand Carcases in our exportation of Barreled Beef. The Propagation of Swines Flesh, and Improvement in the Art of making good Bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of Pigs, too frequent at our Tables, which are no way comparable in Taste, or Magnificence to a well grown, fat Yearling Child, which Roasted whole will make a considerable Figure at a Lord Mayor's Feast, or any other Publick Entertainment. But this, and many others I omit being studious of Brevity.”. This appeal is essentially a backwards attempt at gaining a sort of “moral high ground” on the killing of children, which of course the author knows is wrong, but purposefully employs for the purpose of once again trying to create unrest and reform, as well as shock the audience that anyone could reason this inhumane solution as

In Jonathan Swift’s essay, “A Modest Proposal”, Swift proposes that the poor should eat their own starving children during a great a famine in Ireland. What would draw Swift into writing to such lengths? When times get hard in Ireland, Swift states that the children would make great meals. The key factor to Swift’s essay that the reader must see that Swift is not literally ordering the poor to cannibalize. Swift acknowledges the fact of the scarcity of food and empathizes with the struggling and famished souls of Ireland through the strange essay. Being of high society Britain, which at the time mothered Ireland, Swift utilizes his work to satirically place much of the blame on England itself. Through his brilliant stating of the fact

“A Modest Proposal” uses ironic and cruel humor to target Ireland’s corruption and poverty. Jonathan Swift bizarre way of announcing his discontent in regards to the British and how Ireland is going down the hill, makes his audience uncomfortable but aware that there is an issue. Subsequently, Swift presents the idea of selling babies as food in order to stabilize the country’s condition. Morbid as it sounds, Swift continues to deliberately explain why this idea would be the perfect solution by stating that these children and their parents begging are “a very great additional grievance” (Swift, 2) and furthermore continues to state that the country should fine a way to make these children ‘useful’. Throughout the text, Swift makes a serious argument on why

Swift states that because these women kept having children and could not provide food to them, the economy of Ireland and standard of living couldn’t improve. So, he makes a proposal to the public that he thinks would be beneficial for them. His way of thinking and argument is incorrect in what he is proposing as He marks that young healthy children are delicious food to be roasted, stewed and boiled to be served and eaten by rich British people. Similarly, he estimates that twenty thousand kids should be held in reserve for breeding purposes. This brutalizes how children should be treated like animals. Jonathan swift trying to support his argument, in a very sarcastic way states that certain body parts of children are good to eat and on special occasions could be held on demand. furthermore, he advises that healthy and nourished kids could be

By the year 1729, Ireland was suffering from its third year of bad crops and was in the midst of a famine. Political, religious, social, and economical struggles within Ireland, and between Ireland and England, amplified these poor conditions and laid the backdrop for Jonathon Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal. Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal takes aim at legislation that had been enacted to limit the rights of the Irish while advancing English entitlements, specifically high taxes, outrageous rents, absentee landlords, and protestant control. Swift’s satirical piece effectively calls attention to the deplorable and unfair circumstances affecting the people of Ireland at that time in a persuasive appeal to remedy these injustices.

In this political pamphlet Swift’s title’s “A Modest Proposal” With a total 120,000 poor children Swift proclaimed are born to poor parents. The solution will come at a horrible and non-moral price. Implementing a six step plan of human sacrifice and cannibalism. The first 20,000 children to be set aside for breeding purposes. Permitting the mother or families to sell the remaining 100,000 children for up to ten shillings a piece. Offering them to their landlord to sell, eat or breed as a debt payment for shelter. Allowing the entire family to move up in their financial situation.

His use of diction relating to livestock as well as his cold, calculated tones and constant appeals to foreign authority mirror and comment upon the elite?s absurb rationalization for their abuse and exploition of the dredges of society. He constantly likens beggers to animals, even comparing children to ?sheep, black cattle or swine? and even speaking of them interms of ?fore and hind quarter?s. His tone is so disturbingly uninvolved and methodical that he is able to calculate exactly how many meals a baby will serve and even pictures cannibalism as a socially acceptable occurence when ?entertaining friends.? Throughout the piece Swift constantly seeks to jusify his proposal by mentioning the suggestions he has received from his influential friends in foreign countries. This illustrates that the narrator?s mind is even farther removed from the immediate crisis and famine. As people read through the passage, Swift is able to sneakily encourage people to question the authority of their elitist leadership.

In order to inform his audience Swift began by describing what the problem is. He states that the problem is the number of children being taken care of by their mothers, who are forced into begging to provide for them. With a quick introduction of his solution he begins to clarify in a very reasonable way. He even states what his plan will help as bonuses.Swift then explains how many children are in poverty that need to be reared, while explaining how he got that number. Next he explains this children can not be efficiently taught any form of work that would be beneficial to society. At this point Jonathan Swift makes his proposal humbly stating “I hope will not be liable to the least objection”(Swift). Swift then explains that children of one year old are good to eat and even specifies how many would be sold for food and how one could eat them. This is not the only use for children though, as Swift states the skin could make gloves and