“A Modest proposal” - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

“A Modest proposal”

Jonathan swift – 1729 – background & breakdownSlide2

History

Anglo-Irish satirist (born in Dublin, English parents, returns to England due to political troubles)

This

was written during the “The Age of Reason” – the enlightenment.

Concern regarding human existence led to a need to address social problems.Jonathan Swift faced such a situation in the late 1720’s when starvation was widespread in Ireland.Most people born in Ireland were Roman Catholic and employed as agricultural laborers or tenant farmers. The landlords (landowners) were paid from the produce of the land at rates which the workers could rarely afford. Irish harvests had been poor for years. Farmers couldn’t pay the rents demanded by their English landlords. Beggars and starving children filled the streets. England’s policies kept the Irish poor. Slide3

A Modest Proposal

The Modest Proposal begins by using vivid imagery to describe the very real poverty of people in Ireland.

Swift

presents this quite sympathetically but sets out facts and details, showing that there is a “surplus” of children who cannot be fed.

Satire: A literary manner that blends a critical attitude with HUMOR and WIT for the purpose of improving human institutions or humanity. True satirists are conscious of the frailty of human institutions and attempt through laughter not so much to tear them down as to inspire a remodeling. Irony and sarcasm are often used in satire.Slide4

Breakdown

“A Modest Proposal” is broken down in the following manner: Identification

of the issue

A mock solution that demonstrates even more intensely the problem

Various ridiculous reasons why the solution will workA conclusion that brings home the message you want to send. Humor Slide5

Further breaking of the down

Swift identifies the issues of economic troubles in

Ireland

Swift’s mock solution -- he

proposes the eating of babies to provide food and also to provide income for familiesHe is NOT actually suggesting that people do thisHe is speaking ironically, meaning that he is saying the opposite of what he meansHis real solution comes later, when he derides, or scorns, the ideas of taxation, mercy, and honestySlide6

MOCK SOLUTION – EXAMPLE

Problem: Teenagers are overweightMock Solution:

Remove all food from the cafeteria and serve only water. Have required gym classes before and after school and between classes. Use cameras to monitor food intake at home.

Real solution:

Teach moderation and good exercise habits. Present healthy food choices at school and encourage them at home.Slide7

Ridiculous reasoning

This is where you explain your solution – how and why it will workSwift explains:

How a baby can be raised for a year on little

money

and then sold for a profit and eatenExplains how skin can be used to make gloves and shoesHow the elderly and ill are not a problem because they are dying anywaySlide8

Conclusion

The paragraph where you describe the ACTUAL solution you intend to

be implemented

. This will not be the solution you suggest in your proposal above. This is the real solution. It is realistic, not ridiculous, not ironic, not over the top

.Swift says:“Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither clothes, 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 … Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.”