A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift and Tartuffe by Moliere

Eighteenth century Ireland was littered with starving families and crime. The overpopulation there was largely due to the amount of children each family was having. In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” Swift tells people to sell their children because of the overpopulation, poverty, and standard of living in Ireland.

During the late seventeenth century the English controlled-parliament had legislated several ideas and laws that restricted the rights of the Ireland Catholics. This caused the Ireland economy to slowly fall apart as many people discarded the issues. However, Jonathan Swift took advantage of the overlooked laws and went on to write the essay, A Modest Proposal. In this writing piece Swift lodged a ridiculous proposal. In doing so he manifested a clear cut image of how backwards and corrupted the state of Ireland really was in the hands of the English. Swift’s essay employed his insincerity, sarcasm, verbal irony, and rhetorics that depicted the conditions of Ireland and its people. However his tone of the whole essay along with his insincerity illustrated the comical effect of the proposal to make his argument seem unserious.

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.

Jonathan Swift was a very crafty writer for his time. Living in 16th and 17th century Ireland must not have been easy considering the history. During this time there was a famine and England was watching and waiting for the downfall of this country. Swift was a satirical writer who was very good at his craft. In “A Modest Proposal,” Swift introduces a lunatic idea that his country should “eat the children.” He is, of course, joking, but he makes a huge statement in saying this. It shows that the government would rather ignore or blame the problem on someone else rather than fixing the problem itself. This reading relates to an audience in that Swift is trying to let the people of his time see what a horrible government the people of Ireland live in. This argument mattered to the people of Ireland and it should matter today because it shows how a government can say it takes care of its people when it truly does not. “A Modest Proposal,” is a very valuable piece because it proves that it just takes one voice to open the eyes of others, and I believe that Swift did an excellent job using the rhetorical triangle because his satirical masterpiece made people think about how they were being treated by the government.

When one thinks of the phrase “A Modest Proposal,” does one come to think of fattening babies so they can sell as meat. In Jonathan Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal,” Swift uses satirical writing to communicate with the reader to expose the critical situation of the poor people of Ireland. Whom besides going through a tough period of famine have to endure the overwhelming taxation rates of the English empire. The author’s proposal intends to convince the public of the incompetence of Ireland’s politicians, the lack empathy of the wealthy, the English oppression, and the inability of the Irish to mobilize themselves against this situation. Johnathan proposed an outrageous solution that the Irish folks eat their children at the age of one or sell them in the market as meet. Finally, he manifests to be open to other suggestions to help overcome the country’s crisis. The proposal was made strategically using several different parts: the text, author, audience, purpose, and setting to persuade the tax to go lower.

During the 1700’s poor beggars, predominantly Catholic's crowded the streets of Ireland. Being too poor to support themselves, they would implore to survive. “A Modest Proposal” by Dr. Jonathan Swift is a notable piece of satire created in attempts to solve the poverty and overpopulation problems in Ireland. Swift bespeaks methods to prevent the poor beggars from burdening the population. Instead of bypassing the “useless pests”, Swift uses rhetorical devices of irony and hyperbole to present outrageous ways the poor could benefit wealthier classes.

In Jonathan Swift’s essay, A Modest Proposal (1729), Swift puts forth a proposal that would over “fix” Ireland’s issue of poor children and women at the time. His proposal was to start eating kids when they were born, so they would not wind up on the streets. Throughout his essay, he uses statistical data, appeal to marriage, and use of repetition to persuade his audience that his proposal will be a good idea.

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.

In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, he imposes that the impoverished and “unmaintained”(6) children of Ireland are “impossible to provide for”(6) and need to “be made useful members of the commonwealth”(2). He aims to influence readers by using subjective, convoluted language in order to establish his proposal that will “solve” the dystopia throughout the Kingdom.

In 1729 Ireland was overpopulated and riddled with poverty. Women and children lined the streets begging for food or money. In his disturbing satire, A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift suggests a unique solution to this dire situation. Swift uses specific language and calculated arguments to vent his anger with the Irish government and to create an effective argument that makes readers aware of the severity of the situation. Swift takes a cold and distant approach to his argument.

During the late seventeenth century, political pamphlets were distributed throughout Ireland to promote the ideas of various intellectuals and laymen. However, many discarded them and did not pay attention to them. Jonathan Swift, author of “A Modest Proposal,” takes lead for these unnoticed pamphlets and builds a proposal he thinks would help Ireland economy. A Modest Proposal is an ironic example that presents the attitude of rich towards poor and their starving kids. Jonathan uses various elements like metaphors, repetitions, irony and parallelism to focus on destructive defiance of the writing. Jonathan swift starts by blaming the mothers of these children that they should start working and get some earning to support these kids. He also foretells the future of these children that they will turn into thieves or sell themselves to foreign countries for money. According to Swift, it is just because the parents did not train their children the unassertive way of life and could not give them a proper lifestyle. In “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Swift does not blame the shortcomings of Ireland on the people. He says that the people, politicians, and English were all to be at fault for the terrible state and poverty of Ireland. there are three factors that make Swift’s argument not serious: the tone of the author, his insincerity, and ridiculousness of the proposal.

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal is an outstanding example of the “sharp wit and biting sarcasm” (Mortesten). Using sarcastic comparisons and ironic exaggerations, Swift captured reader’s attention with the first words of his essay; and led the reader through it in a playful manner, keeping the reader tense and curious – every sentence sounded even more ridiculous than the previous one. Yet besides entertaining the reader, the author was able to make the reader think about the true point of the essay - dreadful poverty and hunger that thrived in Ireland. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift begins by discussing the dreadful poverty flourishing in Ireland.

A Modest Proposal ,by Jonathan Swift, is a rather strange piece of work that encompases a proposal of eating babies. Swift did not intend to for people to actually follow his proposal and eat babies, but to showcase the abuse Irish Catholic’s encounter from Protestants in society. Swift oddly uses the proposal of eating Irish babies in his work to showcase how the Irish Catholics are treated. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift is an obsolete work filled with modern day humour and irony in various ways to compose an essence of satire.

In the disturbing essay ”A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift suggests to have a solution to the “deplorable state of the Kingdom,” and “preventing children of poor people being a burden to their parents or country,” as well as the overpopulation of Ireland. He satirizes dehumanizing attempts to make bastard children from poor family useful to the commonwealth, through imagery “young healthy child ... delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled...” and diction ”Barbadoes, alms, computation” Jonathan develops the text to in a way to make the idea of his to sound better than previous proposals. In order to show some the severity of the outcomes in countries that became colonies of the British Empire.