Johnathan Swift’s “A
Modest Proposal” is a satirical and ironic essay that attempts to persuade the
people of Ireland to take action against the poverty and overpopulation
problems that they are facing. He is directly speaking to the wealthy and the
politicians, but he is also attempting to motivate the poor and take action
themselves. He suggests that the children of Ireland should be sold and eaten
in order to keep the population down and the poverty levels at bay. Swift manages to effectively argue his point
by using a combination of vivid imagery, emotional and ethical ploys, and a
large amount of irony.
Here is a link of the reading: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm
And a visual:
Attribution: See page for author [Public domain], <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AInternational_Mag_Jonathan_Swift.jpg">via Wikimedia Commons</a>
This sounds like the beginning of a very good essay. It is interesting, because I decided to argue AGAINST the proposal, so seeing your point of view is interesting! :)
ReplyDeleteI think you have a good thesis that you will be able to pull a lot of information from the writing to complete the paper. You have a good argument to show how he was trying to persuade the people to listen to his satirical proposal. Nice job on your beginning and good luck on your final draft.
ReplyDeleteHello Adan! I personally really liked your paragraph because it was down to earth and easy to read and digest. (No offense to everyone else in the class) ...but you just seemed to write naturally and didn't try to make your writing overly fancy and use a lot of big words or analogies. I really liked your line of "he is also attempting to motivate the poor" ...i personally was trying to decide wether the audience of swifts proposal was the wealthy or the poor because it seems as though he is trying to make a point to both! I think your off to a great start and your paper is going to turn out good!!! Awesome job so far!
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