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Rhetorical Analysis Of A Modest Proposal By Jonathan Swift

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In “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Swift appeals to his readers with sarcasm, and outlandish ideas concerning the problem of hunger that Ireland was facing. Swift appeals to his readers with many rhetorical devices throughout the entire short story. The tone in this essay is both, academic and intelligent. The readers get the sense that the solution to the problems that the inhabitants of Ireland are facing will be logical, well-informed, and completely reasonable. However what the reader gets instead is an maniacal amount of information on the benefits of eating children. All while suggesting that doing so will provide a substantial food supply as well as economic relief (because there will be fewer mouths to feed). Since it is comprehensible that the essay is becoming more ironic, it is the last thing that any reasonable person would have thought. One of the quotes in the essay that help illustrate the irony in this essay is, “I …show more content…
In the beginning of paragraph eight, Swift throws out a considerable amount of math, and numbers that allow the reader to associate, logos, or logic with. Swift begins to mention just how many children are being a burden in Ireland. He later continues this paragraph with, “For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture…”(791). While writing this Swift is talking about the children, and how logically the people of Ireland can not employ the children, they cannot physically do the work. Biologically the children are not developed enough to complete the work, or even do the work itself. Another example of logos would be, “ A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends…”(792). Logically this would help the people of Ireland who are starving. It would offer two plates, two people that are being fed, two people who are no longer starving. Although the idea of eating children is outlandish, the way that Swift presents it, makes the idea seem

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