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What Makes Literature Advanced Placement Worth?

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What makes a piece of literature Advanced Placement worth? Easy, the literary piece must be beyond extraordinary; withstanding tests and trials, social orders, literary growth, and above all else the ever changing critics. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is in fact a book worthy of AP classes due to it being a widely refuted piece that protests social order and what is deemed acceptable in literature. There is a standard for those willing or able to take an AP course; the student must be equally extraordinary as the pieces that will be assessed, seeing as they are top of the class. Gulliver’s Travels has combated being placed on the banned book list to continually educate the newer, younger, more brilliant minds of today. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels appears to be an inappropriate book upon interpretation; however, he uses the tools of historical connections, satire, and literary devices to craft a novel that earns a well-earned placed on the Advanced Placement curriculum. The novel is a well kept journal by the main character Gulliver as he expands his knowledge and exploration of the world. Traveling …show more content…

Instead of keeping with the “my country is great” act, he turns it into a hatred of people. Swift given Gulliver a new found hatred for the people of Europe because they are heathens, infallible, and disgusting to him. The irony come from the fact he had spent the last few months with talking horses who are now the pinnacle of perfection. Even the diction of the book takes a twist in becoming more towards the idea of abandoning humanity; “debauched”, “antipathy”, and “aversion”. The culture of the time Swift wrote this book insinuates the idea that Europeans hated anyone different and either adopted their ways or forced them to drop them. Gulliver just tends to hate the old ways and people because they are inferior to those he has met along his

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While people participate in various methods of everyday reading and writing, there are extensive benefits to be gained from extending the experience to apply these abilities to literature. In the beginning chapter of Literature: A Portable Anthology, third edition the benefits of reading, analyzing, and writing about literature is explored, while also explaining literature class expectations, at a college or university level. Reading literature expands horizons by exposing readers to various perspectives, locations, and interactions, which molds opinions, attitudes, and behaviors. Taking this a step further to include analysis of the reading serves to train the brain to contemplate information and expand attention spans. Finally, writing about

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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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Feudist, is one extremely common stereotype that Eastern Kentucky has. “In Days of Darkness the Feuds of Eastern Kentucky” by John Ed Pearce, Pearce delivers heaps of information thorough accounts of the people and their activities, all which made up the different feuds. These feuds being in Perry, Breathitt, Clay, Harlan, Rowan, and Pike county Kentucky. The image that arises is one of family loyalties, exploitation and uselessness of the law, and a sense of vulnerability for those caught in the crossfire. John Ed Pearce probes into the difficulties and incentives for many of the well-known feuds in Kentucky 's history.

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Swift didn’t try to solve these problems with his satire but instead he attempted to show the people of Ireland that this was metaphorically what the government was doing to them. The English government didn’t care the slightest bit about children who are poor, grow up to be poorer, end up having to leave Ireland, and ultimately live unhappy lives as long as the English government was making money, the English government didn’t care. With the Irish government allowing the English to do such horrible things to the people and not show any pity or even try to fix the problem and with Swift’s background as a first generation Irish child born to English parents it is obvious that Swift was disgusted with Ireland’s cold system run by the motherland England that isn’t like a mother at all. Around this time other writers tried to explain this to the people as well but their attempts went unnoticed by the masses, this is why Swift decided that maybe Ireland didn’t need to wake up to smell the coffee, but get the coffee thrown in their face. Swift gained the public’s attention with his sarcastic proposal and made it seem as close to home as possible by including statistics and even going as far as discussing marketing ideas, business techniques, the butchers techniques on the meat, and the value of the baby body.

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GULLIVER 'S TRAVEL Comparative Lit: Lemuel Gulliver is a mailroom clerk at a New York newspaper and wannabe travel writer. Gulliver bluffs his way into an assignment about the secret to the Bermuda Triangle. A storm-tossed voyage lands him on an undiscovered island inhabited by Lilliputians who are humans but only six inches tall. At first enslaved by the Liliputians, he later becomes a bigger-than-life figure especially after he starts telling tall tales, taking credit for his world 's greatest inventions, and placing himself at the center of its most historic events. Things couldn 't be going better, until Gulliver chickens out in the face of danger when he has to defend the Lilliputians from their longtime enemies.

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While the poor people of Ireland continue to breed, the rich will have elaborate feasts and dinner parties with the meat of peasant’s children. The idea of the poor raising food for the rich as a solution to poverty is ludicrous as well as highly ironic. The rich will continue to enjoy the luxuries of the upper class such as wealth, power, and fine dining, while the peasants raise their meat for them. The upper class is undoubtedly the British that rule over Ireland, and by eating their oppressed they show their power and superiority. Swift is commenting that British control in Ireland is as treacherous as people eating their own babies as means to survive.

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Not much further into the story Swift uses imagery to dehumanize the Irish poor by comparing children to sheep, cattle, and swine. The imagery Swift uses indicates that the country of Ireland looks at their own subjects as animals instead of human beings. In the story Swift proclaims that the carcasses of the children can be used as gloves for the women and summer boots for the men (Swift 3). Imagine women and men who could afford nice clothing in that era walking around with baby skin stretched over their hands and on their feet. To some this image would be enough to make their stomach churn at just

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Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is an essay that intends to draw awareness to the downfall of the Irishmen and motivate readers to find a feasible solution to the problem. The essay was written in a satirical way that has been able to engage readers to read more on the topic and the essay themselves (Smith, 2011). Swift was able to establish a "love-hate" relationship with readers due to being very sympathetic towards the Irishmen in the first part of the essay (Lovin, n.d.). This was able to make readers appreciate the author for his emotions towards the Irishmen. But then, in the latter parts, the author becomes unsympathetic and directed attention more towards the problems that the society faced at the time.

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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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826 Words | 4 Pages

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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Even today, Jonathan Swift is considered to be one of the most prominent prose satirists in the English language. However, being a prominent writer does not mean that Swift believed in society’s ideals, specifically, gender equality. In his writings, there are ideas can be interpreted as misanthropic or misogynist. A way we can analyze Swift’s thoughts is by examining how he expresses his ideas through Lemuel Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels. From analyzing his work, it is shown that Swift is not necessarily a misanthrope, but rather a person who tries to reform mankind through his writings.

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American literature, can this course help me or just be another course needed? Will this second time around be better than the first? Can this course help me to better understand writing works, for instance, poetry by Edgar Allen Poe or even Shakespeare? Not only is this course required for my degree plan, but I want to see the evolution of writing from Shakespeare's era up till now. Having a sense of knowledge about literature will free and open your mind to brighter ideas and new things.

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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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Johnathan Swift’s novel, Gulliver’s Travels, demonstrates this miserable and dreadful consequence of human life managed only by reason. The Houyhnhnms is a society that represents the ultimate end of the Enlightenment thinkers by removing emotion and passion from their lives. Gulliver describes the Houyhnhnms understanding of reason “Neither is reason among them a point problematical, as with us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of the question, but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do, where it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest” (Chapter 8, pg. 246). The goal of these creatures’ existence is to completely remove any emotions from the intellectual faculties. In Swift’s works, he based his story on a society of animals to emphasize that this lifestyle is not human.

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