I really enjoyed reading “A Modest Proposal”. This piece was very effective as a proposal because it took into consideration its audience, it had a clear thesis, it had points that supported the thesis, and it had a rebuttal argument. This piece is structured in paragraphs that are separated by the points Swift uses to explain why children should be eaten. I liked how he uses very specific points that include ages of children, as well as what those certain ages stand for. I also liked how he placed his rebuttal argument right at the end, so after reading lots of reasons why we should believe him, we got the opposite side of the argument. He proved it wrong, which was laughable for me because the whole piece was a satire anyway. I found it funny that he was arguing against what, in a real argument paper, would be a good reason.
The points he uses are that we should fatten our kids up in order to eat them. He even goes as far as to mention that at a certain point of the child’s life they taste the best. Swift also says that eating babies would be effective because it would reduce the population and it would be better to eat babies because elderly people are just going to die anyway.
I think the satirical tone of this piece is meant to be something like the present day “Tina Fey-like” shows, or something like Saturday Night Live.
No comments:
Post a Comment