Response Essay: Swift

Description

Start by reading Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (Links to an external site.). If you need to do any research on your author’s background, remember, this is the only research allowed on these Response Essays.

If you have never read this proposal before, I would love for you to avoid reading the questions first. If you read the questions first, you have been warned — this is your spoiler alert. Similarly, I have two short videos you should watch to help you understand what was originally distributed as a pamphlet– but they too should not be watched until after you have read your required reading assignment.

First, if you are confused about why your professor is making you read an essay that seems to be about a disturbing topic, watch the following video to get some historical perspective on this region and era:

Now that you can understand where the people being discussed are coming from, I’d like you to watch this video to see why the author wrote the way he did:

You should now be able to draft a 1-2 page (one-full page means ending on the second page) Response Essay responding to as many or as few of the following questions as you would like:

Some readers, unfamiliar with satire and perhaps misled by a different use of the English language in another culture almost 300 years ago, read this essay through to the end thinking the author is seriously proposing eating human infants. Indeed, that perfectly serious tone is part of why this essay is so successful and is still read today as Swift avoids giving away the joke by going too far in his exaggeration. Yet even a reader unfamiliar with satire should discern the many ways the essay shows Swift is sympathetic with the plight of the poverty-striken people of whom he writes. Reread the essay and look for several examples of this sympathy.
Given the severity of the social problem Swift is reacting to, one might think he should have taken a more direct approach in addressing it. Why do you think Swift chose irony and what does this method add to the meaning of the essay?
At what point did you begin to realize the irony of the essay? Reread the first three paragraphs and identify words and phrases that begin to build the satire from the very beginning. How does Swift continue to build the satire gradually up to the proposal itself in paragraph 10?
In this form of irony, things are apt to be the opposite of what is said. In particular, the “fine gentlemen” and landlords mentioned throughout the essay are not actually being praised. Find as many references as you can in the essay to this ruling class, and consider how they, as cannibals, bear the true brunt of Swift’s satire.
A prominent characteristic of Swift’s style in this essay is his use of detail, such as the exact number of children and percentages for breeding, specific recipes and seasonings, and exact monetary values versus cost. What effect does this specificity contribute to the essay?
Find the paragraph near the end of the essay in which Swift reveals his serious suggestions for solving Ireland’s problems. How can you tell these are serious, not ironic, proposals?
Swift in this essay uses persuasive rhetorical strategies, even though he turns them upside-down with his satire. A persuasive essay may typically describe a problem, offer a solution, explain the benefits of the solution, and argue the superiority of this solution over others. Identify these strategies in Swift’s essay and explain how he uses them.

Before uploading to TurnItIn, make sure you have included a clear title telling me which question(s) you are addressing, and if you answered multiple questions, you should have made the connections between the questions clear in someway with how you phrased your argument — not just answering them in the order they appear in above — but formulating an organized argument about the ideas the prompts are asking you to discuss. Finally, please make sure to edit your essay as well.