McBride's Western Civilization Blog

A place for students to share ideas that are discussed in 11th grade Western Civilization.

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Location: Centennial, Colorado, United States

Friday, February 17, 2006

A Modest Proposal Fishbowl

For those of you who did not have the opportunity to comment during class today or who want to contribute more than you did, you may do so under this blog. There were several questions and ideas that were discussed today,
  • How does Modest Proposal tie into industrialism?
  • What role does religion play in this satire (what is a papist?)?
  • Who was Swift (Protestant, Irish Upper Class) and how might this influence his proposal?
  • What is Swift "making fun of"?
  • What is Swift really proposing? Why does he use Satire?
  • What is Swift saying about the English, the Irish?

Your assignment is to comment in regards to these questions, making reference to what was discussed in class and the text. You might also think about researching some historical information in regards to the text (who Swift was, what was the situation in Ireland at this time). Here is a link that will get you started.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

You must also open this up to a "fishbowl on line" meaning that you not just comment once but a variety of times (especially those of you who did not comment) making reference to other people's comments.

8 Comments:

Blogger Alison said...

mschoaff... thanks for finding a point to diagree with!

You guys are too easy... you all agree with each other!

Bring some new ideas/thoughts to the blog.... what different analogies might Swift be making....

Is the author of the paper really expressing the views of author or is Swift representing someone else?

Take a chance... be creative, analyze, dare to be different and USE YOUR BRAIN!!!

8:37 PM  
Blogger Alison said...

Interesting comment made by Kyleem

"cant comdemn the poor for being poor if the people don't do anything to help them."

Is this true today.... was this a point that Swift was making for the future and for the past....????

8:20 PM  
Blogger robbm said...

I think Swift was inspired to write this because he wanted to show that there is a big problem concerning overpopulation and poverty. He refers to the members of the lower class as useless and people that need to be eliminated. He blames religions such as catholic of having to many children!...

12:37 PM  
Blogger robbm said...

He quotes "...as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs." This statement clearly expresses his view towards people of a lower class. This proposal related to the Industrial Revolution because Swift was drawing the idea that because of the overpopulation, new jobs would be presented, resulting in the improvement of Ireland's economy as well as benefitting the poor to obtain money.

12:44 PM  
Blogger robbm said...

over population was a problem then and a problem now! The proposal reflects on how over populatiopn will bring new and more jobs but it will only bring more mouths to feed and more poverty!...

12:47 PM  
Blogger allisonf said...

i agree with megahn k in the fact that swift agknowlaged that there was a large problem that needed to be taken care of with overpopulation.In addition to that, however, i believe that swift was in a way poking fun at the Catholic Upper Class. They were complaining about the poverty and filth in the cities, yet they were not willing to do anything to change the way actions were being taken. In response to their complaints, Swift basically said,"if you want to complain about it but have no way to fix it, then lets just get rid of the problem all together. We'll stop the hunger and poverty at the same time by eating the homeless." The concept was so far-fetched that it deffinately got Swift's point across and made the upper class recognize their hypocracy. swift used a creative approach at trying to get people to come up with realistic ways to better a situation.The fact that he got so gruesome and detailed with recipies for cooking children and letting them live for one year deffinately strengthened his approach at satire.

Another point that was brought up in our class was the fact that people would be paid for selling their children for meat. If that turned out to be the case, would people have as many children as possible just to gain more money? and further, what would happen if a woman could not produce a child? would she be considered useless to society and killed?

the whole idea of swifts article was to get different responses and rises out of the public by the sensitivity of the subject. No one would ever consider eating their children unless they had some pretty serious issues, and the public ridiculed swift for bringing such an outrageous idea out in the open.

1:37 PM  
Blogger tomatogangster said...

I don't agree with some of the points that Leslie made. First off, Swift is stating that the Irish didn't have the income to support children. But I don't think that he was saying that the English always do. I think he was trying to criticize the loss of moral fiber that came from the Industrial Revolution. I really believe that Swift didn't want a "new" economic plan, but rather to reform and shape it so that children aren't liable to be exploited.

2:10 PM  
Blogger tomatogangster said...

In response to Colton, I think that he used statistics to place enphases on what needed to be changed and how badly they needed to be changed. I'm sure that people understood that it was a satire and wouldn't actually do some of the things that Swift proposed.

2:18 PM  

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