Wednesday, August 1, 2007
A Modest Proposal
What a modest proposal Jonathan Swift proposed right? His proposal of eating children does solve the problem of reducing the number of people poor children in the streets. He also provides great support for his claim saying that by eating children we will have safer streets because we will not have as many thieves. This will also provide a way for their parents to have some money to live a "better" life. However his argument is very strong because he only provides a one sided argument. Nowhere in the whole essay does he address the counter argument of his claim, limiting his audience to only people that "agree with him". He even says "I can think of no one objection" (391) and by doing this his argument becomes weak because his argument is only one sided and limits his audience because he can not appeal to anyone else but those who "agree with him".
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2 comments:
I think he does that on purpose, to make his satire even more effective. Didn't professor say this was a satire on argumentation? So by claiming that he can't think of any other alternative, he's challenging his audience and highlights the logic behind his arguments, even though we know it's ridiculous. Does this make sense? I hope so. I thought that line was brilliant when I read it and I found myself laughing out loud.
I know what your saying Betty but I was just answering the question that professor Maxwell posed to us, that is- How strong is Swift's argument.
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