I rather recommend
buying the children
alive, and dressing
them hot from the
knife, as we do
roasting pigs.
A Modest Proposal
• One of Swift’s most
famous and best
nationalistic essays
• Uses the persuasive
appeals of ethos,
pathos, and logos
• Employs Juvenalian
satire named after
the Roman satirist
Juvenal at the end of
the first century CE
• Juvenal and Swift are
termed misanthropic
satirists who believe
that evil is rooted in
man’s nature and the
structure of society
• The misanthropic
satirist (one who
hates or distrusts
mankind) finds life
contemptible
Terminology
ETHOS: an appeal based on the
character of the speaker; an
ethos-driven document relies on
the reputation of the author
PATHOS: an appeal
based on emotion;
advertisements tend to be
pathos-driven
LOGOS: an appeal based
on logic or reason; scholarly
documents are often logosdriven
UNDERSTATEMENT: a technique of
creating emphasis by saying less than is
actually or literally true
IRONY: a contrast
between expectation and
reality
STEREOTYPE: an
oversimplified image of a
person, group, or institution
A view of poverty in
the 1700s. . .
William Hogarth’s Gin Lane (1751)
• The lives of the poor are
filled with disillusionment
• Notice: a child is run
through on a skewer, the
buildings are falling
down, and everyone is
intoxicated
• This highlights the abuse
of the poor at the hands
of the elite
• “The English are
devouring the Irish”
The conditions in Ireland . . .
• Poor harvests led to poor
revenue
• Farmers were unable to
pay rent to their English
landlords
• Starving children and
beggars populated the
streets
• Money was in short
supply (England = $$)
• England’s policies kept
the Irish poor.
Parody: the imitation of a work of
literature, art, or music for
amusement or instruction
• Usually uses exaggeration or inappropriate
subject matter to make a serious style seem
ridiculous
• Utilizes the role of the benevolent humanitarian
to appear “practical”
• Readers see the contrast between its
straightforward style and its appalling content
• Swift protests the purely statistical view of
humanity
Use of Persuasive Appeals &
Literary Devices
•
Swift’s plan will eliminate abortion and infanticide
(ethical/emotional)
•
Children are an easily renewable food source (logical)
•
Children are priced to sell (understatement)
•
The proposal is called “modest” but is instead
outrageous (verbal irony)
•
The very idea of selling a child for food is a reversal of
all that we value (situational irony)
•
Swift mimics the language of business (parody)
KEY IDEA: Swift claims that society as a whole, including
the Protestants, the landlords, the tavern owners and
wine merchants, and the poor themselves will benefit.
In truth, the poor would suffer horrendously.
• Not a single sentence
deviates from the
essay’s bitter tone
• Its persuasive power
lies in its irrefutable
indictment of Irish and
English indifference
and sheer folly in the
face of unspeakable
injustice and misery
• Its immediate
attraction is its wildly
original and creative
idea
•
•
•
•
•
An actual plan to solve Ireland’s
problems was suggested by
Irish patriot, Colonel Edward
Despard
Despard suggested that he
could solve the country’s
problems through a separation
of the sexes
Swift satirically proposed that
the Irish institute a system of
regulated cannibalism
Despard very seriously
proposed racial suicide, which,
had it been instituted, would
have eliminated the entire Irish
population in a few short
generations
In Colonel Despard’s
suggestion, what had been
ironic in Swift became
theoretical truth, for it was
seriously proposed