A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift - Book Report/Review Example

A Rhetorical Analysis of A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift Introduction A ModestProposal puts together satire and irony to shocking and overwhelming effect. This political essay is unmatched, which unites Jonathan Swift’s worries for Ireland’s crooked economy, extreme poverty, and frequent famines. Swarming with vagrants, Dublin’s streets show a terrible picture. Most of the beggars are mothers with several children who crowd the streets to look for food. The sole concern of these poor mothers is to provide sustenance for their children. To worsen the problem, majority of these children become criminals (e.g. traitor or thieves) or slaves later in life. Without a doubt, the speaker could create a plan to make these children beneficial to the society. Swift uses the speaker to propose eating babies as a solution to the problems of Ireland. Swift uses satire to appeal to the emotions of the Irish people in order to encourage them to help the country. The purpose of this essay is to do a rhetorical analysis of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. The reason for doing this rhetorical analysis is to demonstrate how Swift uses satire to draw audience attention to the problem, which is the dire situation Ireland was facing at the time. A satire uses mockery, exaggeration, and irony to reveal and condemn the immorality, corruption, or foolishness of a society within the setting or framework of contemporary politics. The speaker proposes cannibalism of Irish infants as a sensible, rational, and in fact responsible solution to the problems of Ireland. This satire does not aim to inflict damage or harm, but rather it tries to produce a shocking effect to make the causes of major Irish problems revolting so that these causes will be purged or removed from the people and society. It is this shocking effect that makes Swift’s political document controversial and highly effective. Rhetorical Analysis Swift’s satire uses three elements—ethos, logos, and pathos. In terms of ethos, or author’s credibility, Swift was known for being a remarkable political essayist and critic. He is also known for being religious, which gives A Modest Proposal a sharp appeal. It is somewhat difficult to reconcile the fact that the ‘religious’ Swift has created a speaker that advocates cannibalism as a solution to Ireland’s major problems. This makes the satire more shocking and, thus, effective. What fascinates audiences from the time of Swift to the present day is the outrageous proposal of the anonymous speaker who combines, in one persona, an indifferent rationality and a methodically coldhearted reaction to the problem. The inability of the speaker to understand the awfulness of his ideas symbolizes the immorality of the culture and the triumph of dominant economic and political reason or judgment stretched to the extremes. Through describing his idea by means of arithmetic methods and a bothersome scientific indifference, the speaker takes on an air of authority and arrogance, which helps in persuading his audiences of the sensibility and rationality of the idea. Swift creates this persona successfully so the speaker appears to view with all other ideas for the award for practicality/rationality and the unending appreciation of his fellow people. With regard to logos, the speaker uses reason in presenting his argument. In the contemporary period, he would be a social scientist, a coldhearted human genius, who acts merely based on the commands of detached or indifferent reason, hence dependent on the dictates and determination of reason alone, dissociated, apparently dispassionate and objective, and without any emotions of a human being. He refutes any form of self-regard or self-interest, projecting himself as driven only by interest in the welfare of the people, primarily in the final paragraph, which on its own sheds light on the speaker’s persona (Swift para 25): I profess in the sincerity of my heart that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing. To eat the offspring of the poor as a profitable scheme would apparently be unbearable for any culture that sees itself as educated and civilized, but such idea does convince the audience to somehow recognize the rational extreme caused by England’s treatment of Ireland. The speaker’s shocking idea develops without admission of guilt or conscience, suggesting that the practicality and effectiveness of the ideas should certainly prevail over other concerns. In terms of pathos, or emotional appeal, the difference between Swift and the speaker is somewhat broad and obvious, as Swift subtly persuades the audience toward a more sympathetic, kindhearted solution to this issue. Without a doubt, this ‘detached’ speaker is subjective in the sense that he talks about several times about his own circumstances, mentioning his family condition, for example, as proof of that indifference. And still audiences cannot definitely claim that he is subjective in any actual sense, because he is not a human being, but a savage. Savages do not make essays. Swift, as an essayist, is not a savage. The speaker of Swift is, obviously, totally ignorant of his own savageness. In fact, he does not possess any form of self-consciousness. A key emotional appeal in A Modest Proposal is when Swift employs metaphors or images to express or present insights to the audiences. For instance, in the introductory paragraph Swift illustrates a depressing emotion a sightseer or tourist could feel when they walk by the streets of Dublin (Swift para 1): It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. He describes the beggars, vagrants, and the large number of children that mothers have but are not able to provide or care for. Such description is saddening and disturbing one way or another thus bringing about emotion. Moreover, how the speaker describes the taste of infant flesh arouses revulsion and pity. It is revolting because it is ‘inhumane’ to eat human flesh, as well as the fact that babies are defenseless human beings and it is immoral to take advantage of such helplessness. It arouses a feeling of pity because it raises the idea that the situation is quite severe that it already requires drastic and vicious solutions. One more illustration of Swift’s emotional appeal emerges when the speaker talks about “those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! Too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes…” (Swift para 5) This statement brings out sympathy for the babies and possibly for the mothers too, even though the speaker’s satirical idea is to view the infants as possible meals. The speaker’s callousness bring about annoyance, anger, and disgust. The shocking effect of Swift’s satire is most powerful through emotional appeals. The speaker’s effectiveness in transforming the most shocking idea into a sensible argument has much to do with the effectiveness of the thesis, as the speaker addresses the main complaints of brutality to his fellow citizens. Proclaiming a full sense of humanity, the speaker proposes a technique for making the society free of the weak and useless. Conclusion In conclusion, the two personas in A Modest Proposal—the compassionate Swift and the indifferent, ‘objective’ speaker—are both successful in their purposes; Swift successfully delivers the shocking effect of his satire through his monstrous persona—the speaker—and his effective use of the ethos, logos, and pathos. Work Cited Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. The Project Gutenberg EBook, 27 Jul 2008. Web. 5 Sept 2014.   Read More