A Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

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.

Jonathan Swift uses humor in his essay ‘A Modest Proposal’ in the form of satire. His writing style specialized in gaining entertainment and humor from the issue that is being criticized. Jonathan Swift was a satirist who is famous for his ‘Modest Proposal’, in which he proposed a shocking but humorous remedy to satirize the false modesty of British pamphlets and the government during eighteenth century.

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.

The speaker is a Protestant member of the Irish upper class, being Protestant in Ireland would also imply that the Swift sympathizes with the British that ruled over Southern Ireland at the time.  The British are oppressing the poor of Ireland greatly. The Irish who need to remove themselves out of this fallacious situation, leads him to his proposal, even though he claims sympathy for the predicament of the poor Catholic population which is the majority. Therefore he also holds an arrogant opinion of them, believing they are expendable since they are not bolstering themselves out of this dismal situation. He is vigorous to itemize the advantages of his proposed project for the elite, who would likely be called upon to execute it. Swift implicates

A Modest Proposal is a deeply ironic and humanistic essay by what it denounces. Swift proposes that the poor of the country sell their children aged one year to those who will be able to afford this "delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food". This provocative proposition denounces the selfishness, inhumanity, and injustice of political economy: if the poor are devoured, figuratively, by politicians and the rich, as well as propose that they are also literally. Exclusion becomes ingestion. It also reveals a certain conception of the human being whose reason and common sense are doubtful.

While one child receives a new gadget, another receives even more hunger. Although that truth is difficult to swallow, the reality is that there are a few children born into wealth and many others into extreme poverty; worst part is that the vast majorities of those children later lack even the tools to change their situation. An even more gruesome reality is the one that Jonathan Swift faced when he wrote his Modest Proposal in his native Ireland. Besides the lack of wealth, there were many issues such as mothers who were not allowed to work for their needs, or the handcuffing feudal system. Then there was the discussion of how the greed of today is literally destroying the Earth and our children in the process. Such that the children cannot share their gadgets in one country and others share their little food in another country. But Jonathan did say he was open to any other ideas, maybe our present time has the tools to end this inequality. If nothing

Since its original publishing in 1729, Jonathan Swift’s pamphlet “A Modest Proposal” has endured for its rhetorical complexity (and sheer satirical absurdities). Through judicious use of ethos (ethical appeal), logos (logical appeal), and pathos (emotional appeal), Swift crafts a sarcastic, insincere, overly embellished argument to address Irelands food shortage and economic crisis meant to simultaneously entice and repulse readers. His audience is explicitly asked to accept the intentionally horrifying idea that the numerous children of Ireland’s poorest class can be made useful predominantly as food, but also as footwear, for wealthier citizens.

"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is a satirical essay that is focused at exposing the dreadful life the poor citizens of Ireland had to go through. The author evidently blames the wealthy individuals for the situation.Swift, with a strategical and powerful use of rhetorical devices such as irony and appeal to emotions, effectively points out the real solution for the horrific condition of Ireland.

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.

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.

In 1729, Ireland was at its worst, economically and politically, under the complete control of England. England had control over Ireland in every aspect: politically, militarily, and economically. Because England was tremendously profiting from Ireland’s dependency on them, they cared very little about the conditions that the Ireland people were having to live under. Jonathan Swift, an Ireland satirist, felt obligated to change the conditions that the people of Ireland and himself were living in. In a proposal, Swift uses extreme irony and exaggeration to bring attention to what he is truly trying to reciprocate to his audience. Through “A Modest Proposal”, Swift turns to the political leaders and the mistreated people of Ireland

A Modest Proposal was Jonathan Swift’s response to the deplorable conditions faced in Ireland. Swift’s writing brought light to the economic and social issues facing the public in an outlandish, contemptuous, and somewhat humorous way. Cannibalism, as Swift suggests, was a practical solution to the crisis’s faced during the time of his writing. Such a morally outlandish concept uses exaggeration as a tool to relay his argument, making his satire highly effective. The use of satirical responses can elicit change and provoke thought through self-reflection, humor, and criticism.

Jonathan Swift, a writer, satirist, and clergyman during the period of Irish Catholic economic oppression in 18th century Ireland, used his platform to create the essay “A Modest Proposal”, which took advantage of manufactured ethical and strong emotional appeals, to spark political reform and rectify his broken country. After the initial shock of reading Swift’s essay, the intent behind it is clear; it is a work of satire. The most prevalent technique Swift employs in this work is his authoritative tone, brought on by his use of a dialect, known as “king’s english”, and his immense vocabulary. An example from the text shows this clearly as he states, “Whereas the Maintainance of an hundred thousand Children, from two Years old, and upwards,

On the one hand Jonathan Swift uses the satire as a way of presenting material so as to criticize comically, by making fun of the object of critique. In A Modest Proposal, Swift tells his aggravation set up at the ineptitude of Ireland's politicians, the hypocrisy of the wealthy, the tyranny of the English, and the squalor and degradation in which he sees so many Irish people living. While A Modest Proposal complains about the poor situation of an Ireland from England's exploitation, it also expresses Swift's disgust at the Irish because they can’t speak up for themselves. Swift's piece protests the utter inefficacy of Irish political leadership, and it also attacks the orientation of so many contemporary reformers toward economic utilitarianism.