Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”
During the late venteenth 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, autho分离定律
r of “A Modest Proposal,” takes advantage of the overlooked pamphlets, and constructs a ridiculous proposal. He does this to illustrate how backwards and bad the state of Ireland is and the social class. Swift propos that the babies of all the poor and desolate will “contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands” to improve Ireland’s economy and standard of living (Swift 868). He says this becau many women kept having children but were unable to provide for them. He also states that his proposal would make the babies “beneficial to the public” (866). Also, it is propod becau of Ireland’s sincerely grim living standards. For the reasons, he looks at the politicians to blame for the poor conditions becau of the apathy they prented while in the decision making process, to resolve the conditions. In “A Modest Proposal”, Swift effectively us insincerity, sarcasm, and rhetorical exaggeration to reveal his annoyance
of politicians, papists, and overall citizens of poverty-stricken Ireland in the late venteenth century. However, there are three factors that make Swift’s argument not rious: the tone of the author, his insincerity, and ridiculousness of the proposal.
In “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Swift does not blame the shortco mings 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. Swift states that if a poor infant pass the dangerous years of childhood, they would “leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain [James Stuart]” or “they would ll themlves to the Barbados,” as indentured rvants (867). Here, he
suggests that neither the ones that did leave the country, have no n of nationalism, nor do they have any pride in their country and have also lead to its demi.
“A Modest Proposal” also reveals to the reader a n of rentment towards Roman Catholics, often referred to as “papists” within the essay胃疼有哪些症状
. In paragraph thirteen, Swift mentions that more Catholic babies are born nine months after Lent and will flood the market with infants. Later on, he says his proposal “will have one other collateral advantage, by lesning the number of papists among us” (869). From paragraph thirteen, the author reveals animosity towards papists by wanting to reduce the number of their children and therefore reducing the amount of Catholics. Also, another asssment can be made by the fact that Jonathan Swift himlf was an ordained Anglican priest (866). Since the ever-prent conflict between Catholics and 锦上添花是什么意思
Protests existed, it makes it quite possible that the Catholic Church had an influence o n Ireland’s economy at the time or so Swift lead
s the reader to believe.
Another annoyance revealed to the audience is the confrontations that Ireland had with England. During the late venteenth century, Ireland was controlled by her neighboring nation, England. England impod many heavy taxes upon the Irish as well as commandeers their resources for their own. In the text, Swift profoundly states how the English exploited Ireland by saying:
Let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our abntees at 5s. a pound: of
using neither clothes, nor houhold furniture, except what is of our own growth and
manufacture: of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign
luxury: of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: of learning to love our
country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: of
quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were
murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: of being a little cautious not to ll our country and consciences for nothing: of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. (872)
As we can e from the above, Swift wants the people of Ireland to take a stand against English opposition, work towa rds Irish “lf-determination,” and have an overall n of national pride to solve Ireland’s economic situation. Similar t o talking about England’s opposition, Swift attacks America by calling Americans cannibals. He says “a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London” assured him “that a young healthy child well nurd is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food” (869).
Not only does Swift blame others for the state of the poverty in Ireland; he also exaggerates how horrible it is to amplify how poor and disgusting Ireland was. He first does this荔枝香近
by mak ing his “proposal” unrious. One way he ma kes his argument unrious is when he starts to become insincere. However, he us the dishonesty and insincerity to his advantage in his underlying thought of the essay. Jonathan Swift comes across as insincere throughout his proposal becau of how absurd the whole idea is. He is proposing that people should eat children, who are helpless and innocent. Becau Swift talks about killing and eating the children so freely and without much guilt, o
ne would think th想象力第一
at he is insincere and untrustworthy. Later, he becomes more insincere when he states that he “[has] the least personal interest” in killing many of Ireland’s children for food. He does not believe that “endeavoring [them] to promote this necessary work” of “the public good of” Ireland by the ad vancement of their “trade, providing for infants, [and] relieving the poor” (873). Another instance where Jonathan Swift also brings on a n of insincerity is when he states that he does not have any personal
attachment to his propo武功大全
sal becau he does not have a suitable child. He also states that his wife is no longer able to have children.
Another instance where Jonathan Swifts emphasizes that the essay is not rious by any means is through the tone of the essay. He is rious throughout the essay but constantly changing the tone of the essay. The changing of the tone helps the reader e that “A Modest Proposal” is absurd. At first Swift is very sympathetic toward the people of Ireland. Not much later, he changes his tone to be more matter of fact. Swift changes the tone of the essay to a state of shock by making “a modest proposal” that is contrary to its name.
Swift’s proposal is for women to ll their children to benefit Ireland. Doing so, he shocks the reader.
The trust that has been built between Swift and the reader, at the beginning of the essay has been broken and the reader does not know what to think of swift and his ideas. Using this tone makes his ridiculous proposal standout profoundly and helps portray the un-riousness of his argument.
Jonathan Swift also us irony to satirize what is going on in Ireland. Irony is the expression of on挠羊赛
e’s meaning by using contradictin g language. For instance, Swift says to “sacrifice the poor innocent babes” to “prevent…voluntary abortions and [the] horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children” (868). He is telling the reader that women are performing abortions becau they are not financially stable to support their children and that children are actua名人成功的事例
lly stealing at the age of six, just to survive.
Swift incorporates a diver system of rhetoric in “A Modest Proposal” that gives the reader a “love-hate” relationship wi th the speaker. In the first paragraph of the text, the reader is sympathetic towards the propor becau Swift us language to show that he is very sympathetic toward the poor and that he does not believe the thought of the day that esntially
said that the poor were poor becau they made themlves that way. He shows sympathy towards the poor women and their children. He then says that the mothers are “forced” to spend “all their tim
e” walking about the streets of Ireland begging for “sustenance for their helpless infant” (867). The strong wor ds “forced” and “helpless” makes the reader feel sympathy towards the mothers and children. It also creates a strong bond and trust between the speaker and the reader.
Once the strong bond of trust has been built, Jonathan Swift quickly gets rid of it by employing veral terms and phras that dehumanize humans and also compare humans to animals.炒毛豆的做法
He says “a child dropped from its dam” to dehumanize woman and compare wom en to animal in how they give birth to many children, presumably that animals tend to have numerous young (867). Another common term ud throughout the text is “breeder”. He us breeder to make woman em as their only purpo in life is to produce children and in turn ll them to the market as a “delicacy”. In addition with breeder, Swift goes on to say that “twenty thousand [women] may be rerved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine”(869). Here, Swift compares women to livestock and gives the reader an insight as to how a farmer would asss how to breed their animals. He talks of children and women as animals and dehumanize them.
Not only does Swift dehumanize humans through his choice of words, but he also makes them em insignificant. He does so by turning them into data. In paragraph six, he calculates the total children f
rom poor couples, but while doing the calculation, he also submits the couples into categories: couples who cannot maintain their children and women who miscarry. He starts to make a list of all of the people in Ireland and then, throughout his calculations, makes their numbers shrink which makes them em even more unimporta简笔画大拇指
nt.
