Jonathan Swift's

Jonathan Swift - Rhetorical Analysis

"A Modest Proposal", by Jonathan Swift, is a biting satire about life in 18th century Ireland, in which the author seeks to find "a fair, cheap, and easy method" to transform the sick and starving children of Ireland into productive members of society. Paragraph 20 -26 of the essay illustrates the advantages of Swift's proposal, hardly modest, which is to fatten up undernourished poor children and then sell them to more well-to-do families as food. By presenting this outrageous concept as an interrelated string of seemingly logical arguments, Swift leads the reader to understand that his proposal could simultaneously solve overpopulation and unemployment, save the poor from having to spend their meager resources on raising children, provide the poor with desperately needed extra income, and also give the wealthy access to a yet untapped high-protein delight. Of course, Swift is writing tongue-in-cheek, to shock the reader into rejecting his outrageous negative proposal and instead formulate a more sensible positive one.

Swift establishes his credibility by having his speaker reflect his reasonableness, his competence (usually through elaborate mathematical proofs, such as in the 23rd paragraph in which he computes the amount of money that will be gained as profit if his proposal is followed), his mental astuteness, his conservative estimates and evaluations. Even though, he seemingly establishes his credibility in order to make his ideas seem worthwhile, he truly is being ironic

Swift's speaker boldly announces as the proof of the value of his proposal: "I think the Advantages by the Proposal which I have made are obvious, and many, as well as of the highest Importance." This, in fact, is an ironic statement, for his proposal, in reality, is not possible, let alone important.

In the proof the speaker reflects his compassion for the "poorer Tenants" who "will have something valuable of their own" if the proposal is put into effect. Later in the same section (paragraph 26) he cites as a reason for his proposal the kind and humane treatment it would assure expectant mothers, as well as its tendency to increase "the Care and Tenderness of Mothers toward their Children."

Although establishing credibility is a major contributor to establishing the irony of the situation, Swift is not content to rely upon a single device. In all of these paragraphs he reinforces and elucidates the unstated ironic comment through deftly controlled amplification and diminution.

Derogatory diction such as "breeders" are used to refer to parents. In the last paragraph, he likens the children to calves, piglets and foals: the mothers to cows, pigs and horses. He varies the animal, food, and normal terms, presenting first one and then another term to the reader until the ironic situation is established. Within the context of the ironic inversion, Swift achieves the illusion that year-old Irish babies are cattle. Swift seems to diminish the parents in order to diminish the children, but by ironic inversion he diminishes the Irish and Anglo-Irish who will eat this new food. The separate threads of the diminution