Transcript Slide 1

A Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift
(1729)
• A Short View of the State of Ireland (1728)
presented a realistic account of the Irish
economy: “When the hen is starved to Death,
there will be no more Golden Eggs.”
• Swift wrote more than 70 tracts on Irish affairs
between 1714 and his death in 1745.
• At the time he wrote AMP, Ireland was in its third
famine since 1708, suffered extreme trade
restrictions, high taxes, absenteeism, 2/3 of
revenue was spent outside the country.
• “Old English” first settlers in late 12th century.
• In 1542 Henry VIII declares himself head of the
Kingdom of Ireland.
• The period 1565-1576 was dedicated to tracts
establishing formal justification for English
colonialism.
• Sir Henry Sidney advocated taking Ireland by
force on the grounds of strategic necessity and
expediency.
• How is it that the Irish suddenly become savages
in the 16th century?
• Barnaby Rich’s A Short Survey of Ireland
(1609) sought to denounce popery.
• Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) burned 300
Protestants at the stake in 1555. 1554 Papal
Bull.
• Edmund Spenser’s A View of the Present State
of Ireland (1596) dialogue between characters
Eudoxus and Irenius. Most influential.
• Earl of Essex, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Earl of
Leicester and Sir Peter Carew all gave accounts of
having slaughtered the Irish through extralegal
methods. Gilbert gains first patent from QE to
claim land in her name in new world.
• By the end of the 16th century, all official
discussion of assimilation halts.
• Comparisons between the Irish and First Nations
in the new world begin in 1560s.
Steady Progression in English Policy
• Kilkenny Statutes 1366 made assimilation
unlawful.
• Flight of the Earls 1607.
• Plantation era.
• Oliver Cromwell’s Campaign 1649-53 sought
to end military, remove priests and
landowners, institute conversion.
• William Petty’s survey 1687 and Political
Arithmetic 1691.
• Penal Laws begin in 1690s. Right to vote
removed 1729.
• By the early 18th century Catholics were 75%
of the population and owned only 14% of land
in Ireland.
• Unproven tales of cannibalism become a
common convention of colonialism.
“Pornography of violence.”
• Fynes Moryson rebellion in Tyrone 1602.
• Swift subverts the master narrative
concerning membership in the categories
“savage” and “civilized.”
• Formosans and Londoners would gladly dine
on the flesh of children.
• A luxury consumer culture and its apologists
(Bernard Mandeville) degrade humanity by
forcing them to commit awful deeds.
Satire
• Uses humour in an argument to reveal and
illustrate social ills.
• Rhetorical art of ridiculing a subject as a
corrective to human vice and folly. Satire uses
language as a weapon.
• Sarcasm and irony are often present.
• Often employs an absurd logic in order to
establish a new perspective or point of view.
Maxims Controlled in Ireland
• It is another undisputed maxim in government, 'That people
are the riches of a nation'; which is so universally granted,
that it will be hardly pardonable to bring it in doubt. And I will
grant it to be so far true, even in this island, that if we had the
African custom, or privilege, of selling our useless bodies for
slaves to foreigners, it would be the most useful branch of our
trade, by ridding us of a most unsupportable burthen, and
bringing us money in the stead. But, in our present situation,
at least five children in six who are born, lie a dead weight
upon us, for want of employment. And a very skilful computer
assured me, that above one half of the souls in this kingdom
supported themselves by begging and thievery; whereof two
thirds would be able to get their bread in any other country
upon earth.
James T. Boulton
• “To write ironically with success a writer
needs to be alert to two audiences: those who
will recognize the ironic intention and enjoy
the joke, and those who are the object of the
satire and are deceived by it. This implies that
the ironist has ranged himself with those of
his readers who share his superior values,
intelligence and literary sensibility; together
they look down on the benighted mob.”
• “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 the
cabbin-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. These mothers instead of being able to
work for their honest livelihood, are forced to
employ all their time in stroling to beg
sustenance for their helpless infants.”
• “fair, cheap and easy method of making these
children sound and useful members of the
common-wealth”
• Adopts generous tone in the scope of a plan
which will “provide” for all the poor children.
• Embellishes the status of begging to “lawful
occupation.”
• Even a “savage and inhuman breast” moved
by abortion and infanticide.
• 8 paragraphs precede the proposal in order to
build suspense. He uses the perpetual slight
alteration of language by pairing words in
shifting combinations and contexts. Swift
begins with “helpless infants,” “children in the
arms,” “poor innocent babes,” and then
moves into using the terminology of animal
husbandry.
• With “wives are breeders” he begins to
calculate human beings as cattle for the
market of 120,000.
• Cites Cavan man’s experience with children’s
thievery under the age of six.
• Estimating what human life is worth brings the
slave trade to mind.
• “I have been assured by a very knowing
American of my acquaintance in London, that
a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year
old, a most delicious nourishing and
wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted,
baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it
will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragout.”
• “These children are seldom the fruits of
marriage, a circumstance not much regarded
by our savages, therefore, one male will be
sufficient to serve four females. That the
remaining hundred thousand may, at a year
old, be offered to sale to the persons of
quality and fortune”
• “A child will make two dishes at an entertainment
for friends, and when the family dines alone, the
fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish,
and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be
very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in
winter.”
• Children converted into food through alteration
in language: “this food,” “infant’s flesh,” “the
Carcass of a good fat Child,” “a new Dish,” “the
goods,” “a well-grown fat Yearling Child,” “a prime
dainty,” and “this kind of commodity.”
• Shifts focus to landlords:
“I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and
therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they
have already devoured most of the parents, seem
to have the best title to the children.”
“Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord.”
“gloves for ladies and summer boots for fine
gentlemen.”
• “I rather recommend buying the children
alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as
we do roasting pigs.”
• “A very worthy person, a true lover of his
country, and whose virtues I highly esteem”
suggests that the proposal be revised to
include hunting boys and girls between 12 and
14 years old to replace deer for sport.
• “Men would become as fond of their wives,
during the time of pregnancy, as they are now
of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sow
when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to
beat and kick them (as is too frequently a
practice) for fear of a miscarriage.”
• Cosmopolitan Londoners have much in
common with so-called savages eating human
sacrifices in Formosa.
• Swift couples the fear/aversion to Papists with
the revelation that Protestants leave the
country to avoid paying taxes.
• Tavern owners inflate costs to reflect the
exclusive tastes of patrons.
• 20,000 for Dublin but 80,000 for Empire.
• “ they are every day dying, and rotting, by cold
and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can
be reasonably expected. And as to the young
labourers, they are now in almost as hopeful a
condition. They cannot get work, and
consequently pine away from want of
nourishment, to a degree, that if at any time they
are accidentally hired to common labour, they
have not the strength to perform it, and thus the
country and themselves and happily delivered
from the evils to come.”
• 19 paragraphs meditate on the merits of the
plan.
• Then the real solutions are introduced with a
transitional sentence. “Therefore let no man
talk to me of other expedients:”
Ten items shaped with anaphora
• “Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a
pound: Of using neither cloaths, nor
household furniture, except what is of our
own growth and manufacture; Of utterly
rejecting the materials and instruments that
promote foreign luxury: Of curing the
expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and
gaming in our women: Of introducing a vein of
parsimony, prudence and temperance. . .”
• Wayne C. Booth identifies 3 voices: a calm but
indignant man trying to deal rationally with
the problem, the second voice proposes the
ghoulish cannibalism as solution and the third
representing Swift’s views on Ireland.
• Our inferential involvement is bound with our
emotional concern.
Audience
• Written for an Irish readership about national
problems.
• “I could name a country, which would be glad to
eat up our whole nation.”
• “After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own
opinion, as to reject any offer, proposed by wise
men, which shall be found equally innocent,
cheap, easy, and effectual.”
• Reverses the historical accounts of cannibalism.
• Lockwood argues that the appeal of Swift’s
Proposal over time resides in his ability to
make “us believe so implicitly in the moral
deadness in terms of which it becomes an apt,
reasonable, not to say attractive idea.”
• Reveal your purpose by the second paragraph.
State your thesis clearly in the beginning and
use the body of the essay to develop your
argument. You will fail to engage your readers
with a “aha” surprise moment at the end.
For example: “The two ads will be examined to
see if they are successful.”
Tell us right away what you discovered through
your analysis.
• All punctuation should be placed inside
quotation marks
“like this,” rather than “like that”,
“like this.” rather than “like that”.
Use attributive tags to blend citations into your
writing
Skyy vodka’s nostalgic series suggests that life
was much less complicated before the second
wave of feminism. Avoid (Skyy 266).
• Before you print your paper, read the first word
of every sentence and see how often you begin
with “The,” “This,” “It” or any other repetitive
pattern.
• Avoid referring to an example as something so
obvious that clearly anyone would automatically
interpret its meaning. It sets an unreasonable
tone while also appearing as an attempt to get
out of the effort of stating it yourself.
• An argument implies some degree of
controversy or at least two different points of
view or positions on a topic. An ad’s message
is not necessarily an argument.
• Cite a source before you refer to it in an essay.
“The first ad depicts a woman crying.”
• Every essay should have three parts
(remember the Rule of 3) in a beginning,
middle and end.
• Avoid the first person.
I think that the ads show how little women are
valued in society.
Each ad reflects how little women are valued in
society.
Using the first person can make your argument
overly subjective and also creates a repetitive
pattern and rhythm for your sentence
structure.
• Every essay should have a thesis in the
introduction which directly informs the reader
of your position and purpose. You should not
ask your reader to search for your argument.
Think in terms of Toulmin’s model of
claim+because+reasons.
• State your argument and then proceed to
provide evidence/examples, followed by a
conclusion.