The Genius that is Jonathan Swift:
A Modest Proposal
In a society gone horribly wrong with an inept political system consumed by greed and hypocrisy which led to an economic fall and poverty, a peoples voice was silenced due to their incompetency to resolve their nations grief and perplex condition. However, one man's outrage with the lack of a public response fueled his courage to write what is now one of literature's greatest satires. A Modest Proposal is consumed with statistical analysis, conventional rhetoric, and thought-provoking irony. The use of sarcasm is well incorporated within the writing and is better portrayed by explaining that "[a one-year-old child] is a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome Food; whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or Boiled" (258). Jonathan Swift was able to successfully publish a satire detailing the solution to Ireland's poverty and population increase. His goal was not to promote cannibalism of the young, but to retrieve a unified out-cry of disgust from his fellow citizens. Swift's number one strength throughout the article was his detailing of despicable acts and "solutions" with use of multiple forms of arguments, examples being the appeal to authority, emotion, and appeal to values.
Jonathan Swift was able to support his strategic ideas by integrating the use of the well-known argument: appeal to authority. The first person of authority is the very knowledgeable American acquaintance whom Swift met on a trip to London (258, 261). The information that Swift learned from this American acquaintance is stated and also incorporated into Swift's own ideas. However, before explaining his data, Swift makes sure to document his authoritative source for better credibility in his modest proposal.
In order to communicate his argumentative appeal to authority more effectively, Swift used another well-known and impressionable person, George Psalmanazar (261). Psalmanazar claimed to have been the first man from Formosa, Taiwan's main island, to have ever settled in Europe. It was originally Psalmanazar who gave the detailed information to Swift's American acquaintance. It was in this connection that Swift tried to form a more solid authoritative argument.
Jonathan Swift was able to successfully use the appeal to emotion as another way to support his logical argument. A Modest Proposal was written in its entirety to appeal to the readers values, to stir their emotions, to motivate the citizens of Ireland to take action. Any moral human being will object to the emphasized willful murder of infants as a source of meat for "...merry-meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings..." (264). The thought of brutally murdering an infant for a merry feast should cause gasps to be uttered. Swift portrayed such an enormity for shock-value, and according to the public's reaction to his satire, Swift was successful.
The values of freedom of faith, religion and equality were mentioned by Swift. "[There will be] one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us" (260). Throughout Jonathan Swift's essay, he is not endorsing the murder of an infant, or the execution of those whom belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Swift wants readers to do the opposite, to find more practical solutions, a realistic "modest proposal", one far from the suggestions he had indited.
With his usage of logical arguments throughout his proposal, Swift restricted himself to a certain logical organized format. At the beginning of this logical proposal, the writer introduced us to the problem; the way of life of the Irish, their poverty, their hunger, overpopulation, lack of progress, and the restraints on basic human rights (257). Swift explained how the Irish peasants are suffering while slaving away for the English aristocrats, whom are living a rather luxurious lifestyle. The introductions to these ludicrous solutions that Swift proposes are weaved into the article and are based on other ludicrous, yet logical reasoning. A Modest Proposal was so well organized, so well written and logically supported, that at one point there were people who believed Swift was being literal in his text.
Swift was so deeply saddened and outraged over the oppression of the Irish by the English that he composed a resolution to the problem that the Irish faced in 1729 using logical arguments that contained the appeal to ethics and values, and the appeal to authority. A Modest Proposal contains extreme solutions, included in the writing side-by-side with the classic example of irony through the entirety of this proposal. Swift weaved the impact of irony for, not only mere shock-value, but to allow readers to attain a logical understanding of his diametrical antithetical Modest Proposal (266).
I was assigned to write an essay explaining one strength in Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal". Here it is.
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