A Modest Proposal

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“A Modest Proposal” “A Modest Proposal” was a satirical essay written by Jonathan Swift depicting the horrific conditions of Ireland and the lives of the Irish people in 1729 during the great famine. Swift portrays and attacks the cruel and unjust tyranny of Ireland by the English and mocks the Irish people at the same time. However, Swift's opposition is indirectly presented. Swift is able to do so by using the persona, irony, in order to expose the horrendous corruption and poverty that the Irish had to endure, and at the same time present them with realistic solutions to their miserable lives. The author uses satire to accomplish his objective because it is the most effective way to awake the people of Ireland into seeing their own corruption. He uses rhetorical strategies such as sarcasm, juxtaposition, and paradox to compile his proposal. The sarcasm mentioned in the first paragraph, “It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms.” The sarcasm in this speech is that it’s not obvious whether it is a melancholy for him to see homeless people every day or for the beggar’s way of life. Someone would think that he really sympathizes with the beggars and their way of life almost as if he too was a beggar. However as one later finds out it is not the way he makes it appear because he is nowhere near a beggars state or class and is being only sarcastic showing how the lower class are a nuisance to the select few in society. The speech then transitions to juxtaposition. The juxtaposition in the speech given by Jonathan Swift to the poor Irish people is in the second paragraph. He states, “Whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and

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