A Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

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Jonathan Swift lived from 1667-1745 while living in Ireland he was disgusted with the conditions that the people had to live in. During this time period the lower class in Ireland struggled to even find enough food to eat themselves let alone for there entire family. Swift was writing about the circumstances for deprived Catholics in Ireland, for many years laws excluded Catholics from all public life and much normal private social activity. The government prohibited Catholics to purchase land, acquire a loan on it, rent it at a practical rate or even inherit it normally; this demonstrates that Catholics owned nothing. In“ A Modest Proposal”, Swift powerfully uses sarcasm, insincerity, and rhetorical exaggeration to expose his anger toward politicians and general citizens of poor Ireland in the end of the seventeenth century. Though, there are three factors that make Swift’s argument not serious: the tone of the author, his religious background, and outrageousness of the proposal.…show more content…
When he sent out his proposal to decrease Ireland’s population, he only looks at the positive aim in his idea. He is showing that he’s serious about his proposal by manufacturing evidence, which shows that he has thought about the problem for a very long time. This proposal is written sarcastically to belittle the manner of the artificial revolution that saw people as being a product to be manipulated, also the most rate of population growth far surpassed the amount of food that they were producing, this causes the problem that there would never be enough food. Swift was very out spoken of how the government was managing the issues at this time. Swift mentions a year old offered in sale to the persons of quality, and fortune, advising the mother to let them suck plentifully, so as to render then plump, and fat for a good

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