A Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” written in 1729 was his 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 he publick” (Swift, Title). This proposal included the selling, skinning and buying of babies at the age of one. This proposal that he has come up with is a very inhuman and controversial one when it comes to being socially acceptable.

At the time A Modest Proposal was written, Ireland was in a state of extreme poverty. The country was significantly overpopulated: people were struggling to make ends meet and provide for the growing population. The author of the text, Dr. Jonathan Swift, was repulsed by the Irish government’s reluctance to institute any major changes to help resolve the levels of poverty and overpopulation present at the time. In response, he wrote this text to criticize the upper class for this level of inaction, as well as their failed attempts at resolving the issue. Through Swift’s use of satirical devices -- such as irony, hyperbole, and understatement -- he was able to convey his message to the public which was criticism about the inadequate actions being taken by the government to solve Ireland’s troubles. He believed they weren’t doing enough to help the situation at the time and wanted them to see their defeat in hopes that they would decide to finally act.

In paragraphs 29-31, Swift mentions several expedients, such as taxes, wearing homemade clothes, rejecting foreign luxury, curing vices among women, instilling the virtues of patriotism, taxing the absentees, and rejecting divisiveness while promoting honest, industry, and skill. Swift’s speaker stated at the end of all his expending, “How preceptors!” Swift’s rhetorical purpose is to make the reader realize that he is ironic as well as understand what he actually stands for. The reader learns that Swift is forced to resort to ironic tone to reveal his true intention, which would otherwise go unnoticed. Swift is ironic because there is no way his expedients could succeed in a time that Ireland was in, he was mainly trying to highly the economic problems affecting the county at the time.

The sarcastic views of Swift’s understanding of the poverty of Ireland leads him to make a proposal for a solution to poverty, where he ignores the concern of human morale by displaying the lacking efforts of England to help. Swift uses methods that work to get or help better understand a situation, for example being sarcastic in a situation where a person wants something out of the situation by satire. The undeniable effect of satire catches the attention of England to further display the poverty of Ireland which is displayed throughout Swift’s Modest Proposal with exaggeration, incongruity and reversal.

When you see a solider in his or her uniform, you are proud that they are serving this country to protect our freedom, securing our country, and defending democracy worldwide. The solider can come from different branches of the Military. The one you might be familiar with is the U.S. Army. These soldiers are well respected and prepared to serve our country whenever and wherever needed, combat-ready at all times, and trained to counter any threat, anywhere. In 2007, the United States Army department published a recruitment ad for U.S.

Do you ever wonder how journalists get away with presenting overly biased information through blog sites and news articles? Reporters have been doing this for years, and because of the law enforcement's inability to regulate what gets broadcasted through the media, these articles remain the leading culprits for false interpretation by the audience. A Modest Proposal is a prime example of how easy it is to manipulate the media by the way Swift conjures up what seems to be the “only solution” for the poverty issues in Ireland. Although the idea of “eating children to save money” seems absurd today, the citizens actually believed it to be a probable solution at the time. Swift influenced the viewpoints of his readers by the way he presented logical statistics in his work, making him seem as a credible source to onlookers who had no prior knowledge on the topic.

In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” he addresses the problem of extreme poverty and social unrest in Ireland in the early 1700s. He accordingly provides a solution: selling the children of poor men and women to be eaten. He gives this solution in the context of satire. While he may not truly believe that citizens of Ireland should eat children, he does believe that the commoners should take drastic action if the government will not aid them. To show his readers what the purpose of this essay is, he begins by providing many facts, statistics, and estimates about the destitute children and the poverty in the slums of Ireland. He moreover gives many reasons why Ireland desperately needs this, and how it will even solve things past financial difficulties. Lastly, he assures his readers that he will not reap any of the benefits he claims will be available upon use of this practice.

Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, and showed that Ireland had an issue with famine and overpopulation. His proposal essay was very gross and disgusting, but it solved the issue that he was conveying. Swift’s piece is effective because children are vulnerable, it creates mental pictures, and it accuses everyone in their society.

My “best” piece is my rhetorical analysis written about a high school senior’s controversial yearbook picture. I feel that this essay in particular is the best one I wrote because it demonstrates both my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. This essay was one of the more difficult ones to write. At the beginning of the semester we focused on primarily on personal writing, “showing not telling” and the use of colorful language. For this essay, however, we focused on the academic knowledge, logic and criticism aspects of writing. Admittedly so, I disliked writing this essay. Writing this essay was a new experience for me because I had never focused on the negative aspects of someone else’s work. Re-reading my essay multiple times after receiving feedback from you made me question myself.

A Modest Proposal examines the attitude of the rich towards the poor children in their society. There are many rhetorical devices effectively affectively used to highlights Jonathan Swift proposal. He uses metaphors, repetition, logical fallacies and humor, parallelism, sarcasm and satire tone to highlight the negative attitudes. He starts his proposal by blaming and mocking the children’s mothers by informing them that instead of begging for alms (aka money) they should just get engaged or find a job to earn a fare rage for a hones living. Jonathan Swift goes on by predicts the future of the children saying that as they grow up they will become thieves. The reason for this is because he says the parents failed to raise their children the modest way.

In “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, a solution is presented to assist in solving 18th century Dublin, Ireland’s issue of having too large of a population to feed and care for. The majority of the population was in poor condition. The city’s peasants mostly consisted of female beggars and their large group of young children. These lower-class children often were brought up without a proper education and nourishment, turning them into citizens who beg, thieve, and reap little in society, burdening the nation as a whole. To solve Ireland’s predicament, Swift uses satire to propose his solution: a certain amount of the peasant’s children should be preserved and the rest sold at a year old to the prestigious and the general public for use as a food and clothing source. Swift wrote that his proposal would solve the issue of hunger in the nation, decrease the population of the poor that burden society, and increase the economy and well-being of Dublin. Although Swift, a known satirist, introduces a moderate solution in his essay, he does so in a jest not many understand, making his proposal a hazard to society as individuals can misinterpret the meaning and enact it for their betterment.

In the early eighteenth century, Jonathan Swift proposed a "Modest Proposal" in an attempt to shame England, and shock Ireland out of their passive ways. Swift was against at the passivity of the Irish, who had become so accustomed to the situation of struggling that they seemed unable to make any effort to change it. As an angered swift, satire was used in his writing in a humorous yet gruesome way to get his point across that something needs to be done about the problems of the overpopulation and starvation of the Irish, and the Englishes lack of support. Swift challenges society by presenting his satirical proposal to eat babies in order to shock the audience, challenge their moralities, and expose their hypocrisy.

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Many people have probably thought that the world might just have too many people on it. How many is it to be too many though? When do you start to make changes, and how do you control the population in a uncrude way? Well in a “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift he had a plan to not only control the population, but make the children not a burden, and help society. Who really knows though if our government, or any other is actually doing something as inhumane as this. There is a lot of things that happens within our government that we don’t know about on a daily basis.