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Satire In Johnathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

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Would people, as parents, wait 9 months for a child just to eat them, a year later? Johnathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal uses satire text to give a better understanding of the underlying causes of poverty in Ireland, in 1729. At the time, he gives a solution and expresses that to help poverty, we should fatten up the newborns and when they turn the age of one sell them to the landlords for a nice meal. In Swift’s pamphlet, the author effectively uses ethos, logos, and satire to convince the audience of what he is proposing, which is how to end poverty by eating the young children.
Furthermore, in Swift’s writing, he uses logos which is the principle of divine reason and judgment. The people that were not as wealthy would run out of money and could not pay their landlords. All the people's crops and livestock would have already been acquired, but if they could use their children as a way to make a deal than they could pay the rent on their homes. “The poorer …show more content…

Emotion is what majorly affects peoples decision making, all the time they always have feelings about things that affect the decision. Using pathos Swift tries to make the audience emotionally invested and wants them to feel a certain way about something. “There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas, too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast” (357). In this Swift really has people thinking, or at least me on how to fix this problem or how we can help in any way. This is the emotional part that gets people thinking and gets them on board with what he is trying to get

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Pathos, is persuasion using emotion and a lot of people use pathos to persuade someone into doing something they want. When Cassius tries to persuade Brutus into thinking that he is just as good as Caesar, he announces that he is going to forge signatures from several citizens, in his soliloquy. Soliloquies reveal inner thoughts and feelings out loud, when no one else is able to hear. Doing this will let Brutus to see that he, himself, is just as good as Caesar and any other Roman. Having that would build the confidence in Brutus, allowing him to stand up to Caesar and plan the attack on him much more easily.

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”(58) and one of the few points Patrick henry wants his audience to view in his speech is that he's trying to grab their attention with pathos. the author uses pathos because he wants the delegates to acknowledge the problem that's happening and uses emotional profound loaded tone and language in order to convince the delegates attention.

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Mohammed Ismail AP Language Composition Lyons, William December 9, 2014 Rhetorical Devices Used in Jonathan Swifts Modest Proposal The essay Modest Proposal, written by Jonathan Swift perhaps known better for his novel Gulliver’s travels wrote this piece, because during his time he addressed solutions to many contemporary social issues by writing them on pamphlets. Swift’s main purpose in writing this essay is to avert children from being less of a problem to their parents and the public. The author tries not addressing his subject directly, children, instead Swift introduces the concept of a market, livestock, breeders, etc., to address the overcrowding and poverty stricken children in Dublin, Ireland.

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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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However, the proposal seemed so heart-wrenching and far-fetched, it repulsed the audience by his description of when and what age to harvest the children as if he really believed his proposal was the solution. The way he described the women and children as beggars on the street in the beginning was emotionally difficult to read because, he gave the reader a vivid mental image. One part showed great imagery as he discussed how the children could be “stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled” (Swift 2), which the reader could now picture by him using terms people use when cooking animals. This piece of imagery shown indicates that the Irish government was treating its lower class no better than animals. Another strong image is created when he suggests using the children’s skin to make lady’s gloves and men’s summer boots, which is terrible and gruesome to even think about.

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Swift’s goal was to gather the underprivileged children and ship them off to rich landowners who could afford

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In the satirical short story, “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift depicts the immoral treatment of the Irish by the imperial power, Britain. The 18th century brought great frustrations to Ireland in that the people were being oppressed by imperialism, which led to poverty and hunger. Swift satirically proposes a solution for Ireland’s problems by using a variety of rhetorical techniques: twisted humor, irony, and metaphor. Swift suggests that the only way to save Ireland from overpopulation and poverty is to kill the children of the poor families and serve them to the nobility of Ireland. Swift goes so far as to think of recipes and ways to make the skin into gloves and handbags.

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Rhetorical Analysis Essay: A Modest Proposal Dr. Jonathan Swift places himself as a villain who is willing to do evil deeds to answer hard questions. What pushes Swift to write the essay “A Modest Proposal” is Ireland's economic and social problems. In this satirical essay Swift highlights the problems in Ireland and gives a sarcastic solution to make people feel guilt. Swift’s use of dehumanizing language is used to make the reader oppose Swift’s modest proposal.

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When it came to Ethos, Swift was not quite as persuasive as he could have been. He does have a background when it comes to writing about corrupt governments in tales such as “Gulliver’s Travels.” The way Swift wrote this essay, however, makes it feel slightly less objective. Even when he is writing from the point of a wealthier Irishman, his overall tone shows a large amount of contempt towards the higher economic classes. Instead of allowing the readers to read alternative arguments on this subject, he focused strictly on his own opinion.

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Jonathan Swift is an enlightenment thinker that uses satire in his writings to bring awareness to the political power and mistreatment of the people of Ireland, ‘‘he was angry or in a fit of despair over Ireland 's economic condition’’(DeGategno). Swift uses satire throughout his proposal, by suggesting to the people of Ireland that they should harvest the little children of the poor. Swift stated that by making ‘‘Them Beneficial to the Public", Ireland would be in a better circumstance. Swift proposed that the poor children 's guardians should give birth to however many number of children as would be possible and offer them for sustenance. Instead of Swift addressing the issue straightforward, Swift used Satire ¬¬¬¬which employs irony sayings- one thing while meaning its opposite—in order to present an argument.

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Luckily, Swift found a way to put these children to good use: raise them as food for the wealthy citizens (Shmoop Editorial Team). Swift points out that it may be easier for the mother if they had money instead of an obnoxious child. Swift said that people’s only suggestion would be that less people would occupy Ireland. He even stated that he of course would have no bias because his children were too old to gain prophet for eating. The best part, Swift points out, is that the children being sold will give the economy a boost.

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In literature, the element of satire is employed to illustrate or exploit the corruption of a society by means of exaggeration, black humor, highbrow wit, or mockery. The writer's intent is to make permanent change for a problem or fight a cause in a society that otherwise looks away in ignorance. In "A Modest Proposal," Jonathan Swift spins a web of masterful satire to propose a grisly solution to the problem of poverty, which mocks the folly of the 18th century socially elite and puts the blame on the greed of the wealthy for the sickly state of the nation. The Restoration and the 18th century for the British was a time of great commercial and economic prosperity, and the Anglican Church remained closely tied with the governmental power

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Pathos can be found when looking at the generalized meaning of the song. When Swift is trying to say, is that her friend deserves better than what he has. Several people can relate to watching a friend date someone who doesn’t treat them properly. It’s annoying to watch

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Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a very interesting take on how the Irish government should cure the famine that the country was then facing. However, the entire proposal was completely bizarre, and the whole point of the essay was to bring attention to the idea that they needed a solution to the all the problems they were experiencing but the proposal was definitely not it. He even had a strongly developed plan as to how his proposal would work which makes the reader feel as if he is serious about selling children, eating them, and/or using their skins as a fashion accessory; however, ultimately this proposal is not his true goal. Jonathon Swift skillfully used different styles of writing, such as imagery and irony, to show why the Irish should sell their children to the rich to eat.

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Critical Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” In the work entitled “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, the theme of social injustice is enhanced by the use of verbal irony to convey a charged message. The ambiguous title and introduction to Jonathan Swift’s masterpiece does little to prepare the reader for shocking content revealed later in the text. Swift’s work is powerful, poignant and persuasive because it strikes at the heart of the modern readers ethics, as it likely would have done for the author’s contemporary audiences. Jonathan Swift’s 1729 masterpiece is a satirical metaphor centered around the pervasive assertion, “the English are devouring the Irish.” Jonathan Swift gives a more comprehensive exordium concerning his work stating that is it “a modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents and country, and for making them beneficial to the public (Swift 1199).

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