Swift: Shock and Awe!

Response to Swift Essay

            The corner on Anglesea Street is littered with papers, books and pamphlets as the gentlewoman clutches at the stacks on her way to the cobblestones. Passers-by dive to catch her and prevent her from injury or at the very least from soiling her fine clothing with Dublin’s filth. They are un-aware of the cause of her fainting, yet it is still clutched within her silk-gloved hand.  A literary work so heinous and disgusting that it has brought about similar responses everywhere it’s read. This work, published under a pseudonym, proposes the sale of the emerald isle’s impoverished children for the purpose of cannibalism. This was to address the overpopulation of the poor Irish people and to benefit the general society as a whole. Through his 1729 satirical essay “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Swift is quite effective in his attempt to prompt his contemporaries to re-assess their opinions on many social conditions.  Can we surmise that the mere shock of the public at large was the intended purpose of this work?

            The answer would be both yes and no. Initially any reader of the text would be drawn in by being made aware of the current plight of those less fortunate. Swift is clever in this tactic by delaying his shocking solution by a few paragraphs of seemingly harmless prose. He addresses his audience from the authority of his pseudonym of which he claims to be a doctor. Many similar writings of that period began in the same tone and addressed the exact same issues but none in the way in which Swift crafted.  By this I believe we can assume the authors of such text were among his intended audiences. He may very well have aimed at shaming them as well as their solutions as inadequate or maybe condescending toward the peoples they intended to aid, the Irish. His audience included the English themselves as well as Irish society as he lived in both and was very familiar with the predatory relationship which existed between the two cultures. What social conditions existed in that period which pleaded for such a harsh rebuke by Swift?

            England was notoriously oppressing the Irish peoples in many ways at this time.  Swift addressed them personally when he wrote, "For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it." Also the economic conditions within Ireland did perpetuate a cycle of poverty that he was personally witness to. One only had to walk the same streets he did to be acutely made aware of their plight. There existed the stereotype of the Irish poor as thieves which he alludes to by twice mentioning the sentiment within the text. There existed a predatory relationship between landlords of the time and their victims; the tenants. A close reading and attention to subtleties within the pamphlet give light to the religious disparities between Catholic Ireland and Protestant England just as the news of today does: some things never change. Can we therefore surmise that Swift was effective at addressing his audience(s) whatever their position within these social contexts?

            From the woman of wealth fainted on Anglesea Road, to the Landlords who preyed upon their tenants, from the English policymakers who were much to blame, from the clergy of both sides to the condescending authors of segmented “solutions”  who missed their marks; Swift by choosing such a tone in his prose met his. He got the attention of all humanity in that region, regardless of class, in a profound way which caused quite a stir, thus more conversation on the problems but I think ultimately towards solutions and remedies. Consider the fact that we are here almost three hundred years later talking about his tactics, aims and success.  Can we identify any of the common rhetorical tools in the Essay by Mr. Swift?

            Of course we can! Being well trained in these classical appeals, the author employs many of the agents of Aristotle toward his aim. By relying on the false credibility of a fictitious doctor right on the front cover of the pamphlet the author has employed the common rhetorical tool of ethos. He has taken on the “cloak” of credibility by deceiving his audience into think that he is qualified to speak on such matters. The most obvious appeal in the text is the emotional one, or in other words; pathos. We feel our emotions range from sympathy for the impoverished, to horror at the proposed solution; to anger at the arrogance of the narrator. All examples of the author’s intended use of the common rhetorical tool pathos.  Beyond rhetorical devices are there other literary methods at work here?

            Yes, satire, More precisely Juvenalian satire. Abrasive and contemptuous in nature, this method juxtaposes the decency or sense of right order against the alternative producing what I think is a more effective shock to the reader, Swift does not wish for a passive audience. He desires action as a result of his work. He proposes an absurd and outright morbid solution to the problems to propel the reader to ask him/herself what might be a viable one and then hopefully act in some productive way.

            From Anglesea Road 1729 to Downing Street London, from Broadway in the USA and even in this day and age: the use of satire to engage one’s audience can be a very effective literary method. Jonathan Swift did everything right, and in such a profound way that we are discussing and learning from his writings today three hundred years later. He affected his audience by causing their collective jaws to drop aghast………just ask the woman down on Anglesea Road…….that is, when she regains consciousness.