- pick a relevant and significant social issue
- discuss why it’s so pressing
- explain how it can be solved, in a satirical way
- make sure you use Swift’s style – just as he shocked us with his proposal, try to shock your reader with your proposal.
- refer to your rhetorical analysis packet to see “the arrangement” portion and follow this structure. (Include an introduction, background information, a proposition, supporting arguments, and a conclusion.)
These essays should be no longer than three pages!!!
You’ve just finished reading Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” so you should have a better understanding of what satire is and how it can be achieved. In this assignment you will choose a real and significant social issue and then write about a satiric solution, using “A Modest Proposal” as your model. Make sure you:
- pick a relevant and significant social issue
- discuss why it’s so pressing
- explain how it can be solved, in a satirical way
- make sure you use Swift’s style – just as he shocked us with his proposal, try to shock your reader with your proposal.
- refer to your rhetorical analysis packet to see “the arrangement” portion and follow this structure. (Include an introduction, background information, a proposition, supporting arguments, and a conclusion.)
These essays should be no longer than three pages!!!
You’ve just finished reading Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” so you should have a better understanding of what satire is and how it can be achieved. In this assignment you will choose a real and significant social issue and then write about a satiric solution, using “A Modest Proposal” as your model. Make sure you:
- pick a relevant and significant social issue
- discuss why it’s so pressing
- explain how it can be solved, in a satirical way
- make sure you use Swift’s style – just as he shocked us with his proposal, try to shock your reader with your proposal.
- refer to your rhetorical analysis packet to see “the arrangement” portion and follow this structure. (Include an introduction, background information, a proposition, supporting arguments, and a conclusion.)
These essays should be no longer than three pages!!!
You’ve just finished reading Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” so you should have a better understanding of what satire is and how it can be achieved. In this assignment you will choose a real and significant social issue and then write about a satiric solution, using “A Modest Proposal” as your model. Make sure you:
- pick a relevant and significant social issue
- discuss why it’s so pressing
- explain how it can be solved, in a satirical way
- make sure you use Swift’s style – just as he shocked us with his proposal, try to shock your reader with your proposal.
- refer to your rhetorical analysis packet to see “the arrangement” portion and follow this structure. (Include an introduction, background information, a proposition, supporting arguments, and a conclusion.)
These essays should be no longer than three pages!!!
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
In the chart below describe the problems the author of “A Modest Proposal” associates with each group listed. Next, explain the author’s solution to the problem and in the final column, describe the supposed “benefits” which will result from the implementation of this “modest proposal.”…
- 384 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
“A Modest Proposal” written by Jonathan swift in 1729 uses satire to propose his solution in Ireland. The problem is poverty and hunger, and the solution is eating babies. He is not being serious but trying to bring attention to the problem. Jonathan Swift’s not so modest proposal uses logos, ethos, and pathos to persuade the audience that cannibalism is the solution to poverty in Ireland.…
- 66 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
If Swifts ‘Modest Proposal’ is satire, as everyone seems to think, then I am even more repulsed in the writing than I was before. Everyone at the webinar the other day thought the little baby was such a cute, darling, little thing, and I agree, life is beautiful. To find humor in, or joke about, killing and eating babies is quite disgusting actually. Finding humour in something so disturbing, grotesque and violent, is quite assaulting to human dignity. The fact, that the author distanced himself from the piece by writing anonymously points to the fact he knew of its graphic assault, whether satire or not.…
- 289 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
“A Modest Proposal” is a strongly written satire by Jonathon Swift. In the essay, Swift applies nearly all of the elements of satire. Some of the most obvious elements are his use of creating a persona and his exaggeration. Beginning by analyzing the title, “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public”, it is a reasonable topic for the essay. However it is not at all modest. Swift absurdly creates suggestions to make the poor children beneficial. His primary goal in this essay is to shame the English, bring up the issues of poverty and motivate the Irish.…
- 588 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift reaches out to the readers about social problems that the great town and county are going through. I believe Swift is trying to tell the readers in a satirical way that the government and political party are not doing anything in the country to solve the social problems. Swift believed the only way to catch their attention was to write the essay “A Modest Proposal”. Swift used satire in his essay to inform people of Ireland how high poverty, hunger, and death rates were not getting any help from the government.…
- 449 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Dr. Jonathan Swift’s use of irony, hyperbole, and invective causes the piece “A Modest Proposal” to succeed. The title is an example of irony because this piece is not really modest at all. The proposal to use children as a food source is outrageous. Another example of irony in the piece is,”I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for the landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.” The wealthy landlords have already crushed the poor’s dreams, so could the be best for the children. Also, Swift uses the literary device hyperbole throughout the proposal. For instance, when he writes,”I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing hot from…
- 242 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” incorporates satire in his writing that exposes England’s economical exploitation of Ireland. The full title includes, “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public” (Swift 558). His essay, very skillfully, brings shame to and sheds light upon the impoverishment of the Irish people at the hands of England’s greed for profits. He employed satire and irony as an effective tool to make the reader understand the state of oppression of the Irish using the most extreme statements. In his writing, although grotesque, Swift’s use of satire effectively confronts the abuses and shortcomings of the political and economic structure of the time, and he successfully uses sarcasm as a constructive method to criticize the social issues faced by the poor Irish natives.…
- 1172 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Jonathan Swift, a celebrated name during the eighteenth century, was an economist, a writer, and a cleric who was later named Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Although Swift took on many different roles throughout his career, the literary form of satire seemed to be his realm of expertise. Because satire flourished during the eighteenth century, Jonathan Swift is arguably one of the most influential political satirists of his time. In one of his famous essays, A Modest Proposal, Swift expresses his anger and frustration towards the oppression of the Irish by the English government. In order to gain attention from his audience, Swift proposes the outrageous thesis that the solution to Ireland’s problem of poverty is to feed children of the poor to the wealthy, aristocratic families. To whom Swift is directing his satire…
- 1309 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
In “A Modest Proposal”, the theme of the short story is all but modest. The proposal is that the people of Ireland should start eating babies in order to dilute the population and to provide money (to, for example, the renters) for the poor who cannot afford food. John Swift uses this ironic satire in order to catch the reader's attention. It is his way of saying ‘here is a ridiculous idea, now think of an actual solution’. The solution that Swift proposes is one that would work but is deemed immoral.…
- 518 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“A Modest Proposal” is accurately called one of the most effective satires in the English language. There are a few key moments of satirical success that should be mentioned. Swift’s decision to put off the actual suggestion of eating babies until several paragraphs into the piece makes his idea all the more arresting when it does come. Also, naming population decrease as the one potential objection to his proposal, Swift heightens the irony of an already ironic piece. The reader is expecting this objection to be that it is morally wrong to kill babies, but Swift subverts our expectations once again, suggesting that there are people so cold to reality that they could be swayed by merely practical economic arguments and cannot even see the outrage of…
- 755 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
I have received your letter and have taken in your concerns about the assigned reading of Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal. I have written this letter to put your mind at ease and to inform you that the purpose of the reading was to challenge the student’s minds on understanding satirical devices. The students are familiar with the definition of satire and they understand that it is sarcasm used to convey insults or scorn. The full title of the story is “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Publick”. Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal is an excellent example of the sharp wit and biting sarcasm that was employed in the satire of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Swift uses an ironically conceived…
- 901 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In Jonathan Swift 'sA Modest Proposal, the tone of a Juvenalian satire is evident in its text. Swift uses the title of his essay to begin his perfect example of a Juvenalian satire. Swift gives a moral justification to the dehumanization of the Irish and attempts to provide 'logical ' solutions to their problems. Despite Swift 's use of belittling language towards the Irish, he uses positive strategy to make his true point known. Swift declares children as the underlying cause of the parents ' inability to obtain a successful occupation. Swift 's scornful disregard for infants is one ploy in attracting the attention of the population. Swift uses a rhetorical style that causes the reader to loathe the narrator, who is depicted as a member of…
- 1334 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
After voicing his frustrations to his government to no avail, he saunters down an alternate route. While digesting his most influential and recognized piece, all readers nod along with the author’s point: a change needs to occur in order for the Irish poor to end their suffering. That is until Swift mentions his plan, which involves raising babies, harvesting them at the ripe age of one, and selling their carcasses as a delicacy to the rich. Until the man reveals the details of his proposal, a majority of the readers nod along, eager to see Swift help the poor that plague the nation. Though no laughing matter like Lichtenberg suggests of satire, the poor do not realize the “hit” against them until they are too deep in their support for Swift. Instead of “[rousing] laughter”, the satirist rouses support from those “who are hit”, as he leads the poor and downtrodden along, appearing like he possesses a true solution to their problems. “A Modest Proposal” exists to criticize the Irish government for its lack of action in helping the poor improve their status, but first, Swift mockingly hits the poor by suggesting the sale of poor…
- 700 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Assignment: After reading Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” write your own half-serious satirical solution to a problem in modern American society.…
- 500 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
I am writing in response to your request of the elimination of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” from the classrooms, libraries, and the school system as a whole. Let me begin by telling you that I took what you said into deep consideration, but after discussing with the work with some of the English teachers at Martin’s Groves Junior High School and conducting research on my own time, it’s become clear that Swift’s purpose of writing is not to encourage people to eat children, because it is satirical writing. I can reassure you that if Swift was really promoting cannibalism, I would remove it immediately from the curriculum. It is easy to misinterpret the meaning of “A Modest Proposal”, because Swift writes detailed, supported descriptions of his proposal of cannibalism. However, if you give me your time, I would like to explain the irony of the essay and why it upholds morality and decency in its self-mocking irony.…
- 846 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays