pokemon
Your personal modest proposal
Using Swift’s piece as a model, write your own “modest proposal.” This assignment allows you to imitate the premise and structure of one of the most famous ironic/satirical pieces in English while at the same time giving you the opportunity to be creative in your treatment of a situation that you think should be changed. Your piece should be 4-5 pages.
1. First, think of something that annoys or angers you. It can be a serious national or social issue or a situation that you have to deal with in everyday life. Swift wrote as he did because he was deeply enraged by what he saw taking place. His essay captures that rage. The best essays will focus on some issue that deeply affects you. If you don’t care, the essay will show it.
2. Swift’s proposed cannibalism because he felt that England was already
“devouring” the Irish politically and economically. In a sense, physically consuming children was just a logical extension of what Britain had been doing to Ireland already. Like Swift, create a proposal that is completely outrageous but which nonetheless has a logical connection to the situation or issue it purports to improve. That is, whatever solution you come up with must be an extension, and an absurd exaggeration of what is already taking place. This is what will help you to create irony.
3. Write your proposal. Structure and format your essay EXACTLY like
Swift’s:
• title your essay A Modest Proposal;
• create a subtitle that highlights the issue at hand;
• describe the situation and the problems it causes; use vivid details;
• present your “modest” proposal, describing its implementation fully;
• list all of the benefits that would come of adopting it; use vivid details
• finally, discuss a solution that really might work to solve the problem
(Swift’s is that if we could all show some decency towards one another, our fighting just might stop. You can find this in the paragraph that begins “I can think of
Using Swift’s piece as a model, write your own “modest proposal.” This assignment allows you to imitate the premise and structure of one of the most famous ironic/satirical pieces in English while at the same time giving you the opportunity to be creative in your treatment of a situation that you think should be changed. Your piece should be 4-5 pages.
1. First, think of something that annoys or angers you. It can be a serious national or social issue or a situation that you have to deal with in everyday life. Swift wrote as he did because he was deeply enraged by what he saw taking place. His essay captures that rage. The best essays will focus on some issue that deeply affects you. If you don’t care, the essay will show it.
2. Swift’s proposed cannibalism because he felt that England was already
“devouring” the Irish politically and economically. In a sense, physically consuming children was just a logical extension of what Britain had been doing to Ireland already. Like Swift, create a proposal that is completely outrageous but which nonetheless has a logical connection to the situation or issue it purports to improve. That is, whatever solution you come up with must be an extension, and an absurd exaggeration of what is already taking place. This is what will help you to create irony.
3. Write your proposal. Structure and format your essay EXACTLY like
Swift’s:
• title your essay A Modest Proposal;
• create a subtitle that highlights the issue at hand;
• describe the situation and the problems it causes; use vivid details;
• present your “modest” proposal, describing its implementation fully;
• list all of the benefits that would come of adopting it; use vivid details
• finally, discuss a solution that really might work to solve the problem
(Swift’s is that if we could all show some decency towards one another, our fighting just might stop. You can find this in the paragraph that begins “I can think of