Literary Analysis Of Jonathon Swift S Modest

Proposal Essay, Research Paper

Literary Analysis of Jonathon Swift s Modest Proposal

Jonathon Swift writes an enthralling essay full of sarcasm and bitterness. He rips apart the upper class and his concern for the common people of his nation spills forth from his written words. He writes sarcastically of how Ireland could recover if they eat their very own children. He uses some statistics to support his sarcastic ideas. Such statistics as how it would cost at least 10s to actually support a child beyond the age of two compared to the 8s they would earn if they sale their children to the rich to be eaten. He effectively uses the statistics to appeal to the reader s reason. But he doesn’t stop there; he then goes beyond this to appeal to the reader s emotions. His techniques for this are to overwhelm the reader’s sensibilities with his sickening approach. His approach of course is the selling of one-year-old children to feed those of refined taste. Now, one may ask why would Mr. Swift go through such great lengths to present this topic to the reader. His reasons for this is to one, show the desperation of the Irish and two, to show his disgust for

the English. The main tones that the passage emanates are one of sarcasm, anger, disgust, and bitterness. The composition of his diction happens to be carefully chosen. His carefully chosen words help to convey his tones and point of view. His point of view of course is his bitterness towards the rich and anger at the plight of the common people of Ireland. For instance, this quote shows his bitterness towards the rich, the remaining 100,000 may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom (Swift, 106). The persons of quality and fortune of course represent the rich and what better way to rip them apart than to suggest that they would eat babies as a delicacy. This second quote shows his anger at the plight of his people and more resentment towards the wealthy, I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children (Swift, 106). To finish up, Jonathan Swift writes an enthralling essay that ignores the sensibilities of the reader and effectively conveys his ideas and feelings of the wealthy and the poor.