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Analysis Of A Modest Proposal By Dr. Swift

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Cat Stevens says, “A person who steals bread during a famine is not treated as a thief.” This situation appears in A Modest Proposal, a satirical essay, written by Dr. Jonathan Swift during the Irish famine in 1729. In this paper, Dr. Swift proposed to eat children as a way to solve the famine and overpopulation. However, Dr. Swift wrote the paper as a way to motivate the lazy Irish to fix their problems. In this essay, Dr. Swift ridicules the Irish with the use of Irony and Sarcasm, in hopes that they will help the poor, suffering souls.
Firstly, Dr. Swift ridicules the Irish with Irony. Hoping his irony will convince the lazy Irish, Dr. Swift wrote this paper. During his satirical writing, Dr. Swift mentions the problems of abortions. He …show more content…

Swift mocks the Irish with sarcasm. Hoping his sarcasm will spur the Irish into action, Dr. Swift spreads it in his essay like butter. In one part, the brilliant doctor adds sarcasm when he talks about the children and how they contribute nothing to their society. He suggest that, “whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common wealth would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.” (Swift 1) Clearly, the sarcasm visibly glistens as it drips from the page. However, he aches for the children of Ireland to grow into upstanding citizens. He bemoans that the citizens of Ireland hold no pride in their country. To convince them, Dr. Swift once again utilizes sarcasm to manipulate the weak minded Irish. He demonstrates how the rich land lords steal all the poor people’s money in unfair prices. He comments that eating the children will be, “very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents seem to have the best title to the children.” Bleeding from the page, the sarcasm hopefully motivates the Irish. The land lords unfair prices have lead many peopl to ruin and Dr. Swift hopes that his use of sarcasm will bring light to the issue. Ultimately, Dr. Swift uses sarcasm to expose the cheating Irish men and poor useless

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During the early 1700s, Ireland experienced economic and social turmoil— unemployment was high, Ireland was experiencing a social class war, and lower class families struggled to obtain food. Renowned author, Jonathan Swift, sarcastically proposes that the country set a quota of 100,000 children to be set aside as a food supply. Swift’s over exaggerated proposal is a subliminal message to the Irish Government that has done nothing to mend the factious and fractured social classes and economy of their country. Throughout “A Modest Proposal,” Swift theorizes a process analysis of the system and social conventions that would be established if Ireland were actually to resort to cannibalism. In his sarcasm, Swift uses many instances of over exaggeration, similes, and parables to convey his obscured message about government reformation.

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Swift shapes the text in a satiric way to portray to his audience his point of view on the topic at hand, and with the use of sarcasm Jonathan Swift mocks upper-class people who are affected by the overcrowding and poverty in Dublin. The usage of a satiric tone and sarcasm help Swift develop solutions to contemporary social problems that will work. In the “Modest Proposal”, written by Jonathan Swift, diction is a key rhetorical device in this piece, because of the way Swift portrays his thoughts through satire. Diction is the style of speaking or writing determined by the choice of words by a speaker by or a writer, Swift’s audience sees his diction as inhumane because of the way he proposes solutions to the world’s problems, such as in paragraph twenty one where he

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In fact, he refers to “A very worthy Person, a true Lover of his Country, and whose Virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on this matter, to offer a refinement upon my Scheme”(17). As a result, Swift shows that even the most patriotic person to both Ireland and Britain (since Ireland was under British control at the time) realizes that within this current situation of poverty, this proposal is a solution and can be acted out in many different

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At the time when Swift’s proposal was made, Britain’s dictatorial reign in Ireland had left the nation in poverty and disarray. Criticising a nation was much easier to do in a joking tone or be harder to read rather than direct and upfront. Swift wanted to discuss these issues and found by writing in satire he could have the readers’ attention in way that a seriously written piece could not reach. Satire is present when Swift convinces the audience that he is an empathetic individual introducing the proposal with a sophisticated and compassionate manner beginning in the sentence, "I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection (1)," luring the reader into a sense of false trust as he begins the descriptions of the poor in Ireland. The reader is led to believe at first that this is a serious essay however it is not until deep into the proposal the reader can see how Swift uses satire to propose his thoughts found in the sentence, “a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled;” continuing on that, “no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust (1).”

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"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is a satire that proposes an ironic solution to Ireland 's suffering problem with poverty and overcrowding. Swift proposes the solution of selling children to wealthy families or taverns to be cooked and served. This unrealistic solution shows how absurd of an idea was needed to get the attention of the government. The main purpose of writing his satire was to bring attention to the horrendous conditions that poverty ridden families were suffering from in Ireland during the 1700s.

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