For example: The contents of Dr. Siry's A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift
Select more than two passages from Swift's essay and comment on how they reflect regional or global concerns with evidence to support your views. What is the point of his essay?
¶ # 4:
"As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; "
¶ # 5:
"There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes."
¶ # 6:
"The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, "
¶ # 7
"I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value."
¶ # 17
"Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves; . . . "
¶ # 33
"I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich."
So we have here an essay on the value of ___________ compared to the cost of raising __________________?
Four Parts to thirty three paragraphs,
Introduction:
1) Starly realistic
2) Ironic
3) "denouncing the practice of absenteeism among Irish landlords"
4) Conclusion:
breeders
charity
Phrases to interpret:
"which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast."
"how this number shall be reared and provided for"
"Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require)"
Products:
- excellent nutritive meat
- flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable 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.
- he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens,"
"It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country . . .
”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 ...”
Population thinking or is it?
Jonathan Swift, meaning of A Modest Proposal, 1729.
Full citation:
