Due 04-07-2008.
The reading is included in the lesson. If you enjoy chapter one, consider reading the rest!!
An Excerpt from Chapter One Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a story of adventure and ingenuity, and also a travel narrative in which the hero journeys to Africa, Brazil, China, and Siberia, and then is shipwrecked on a deserted island. But to view the novel as simply a fascinating travelogue is to ignore much of what makes it valuable and interesting to modern readers. Long a centerpiece of eighteenth-century literary studies and a significant influence on the fiction of its day, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe remains a standard text for teaching the period and continues to inspire popular adaptations and imitations, from children's books to adventure films to reality TV.
Throughout the narrative, Defoe details an individual's struggle to survive in hostile surroundings. As part of his day-to-day existence, Robinson Crusoe faces starvation, illness, pain, possible insanity, even danger from cannibals, but he survives. Read the excerpt below to see how the journey began!
Chapter One: The story begins in mid-seventeenth-century York, England with a brief account of Robinson Crusoe's early years.
One day at Hull, where I went casually, and without any purpose of making an
elopement that time; but I say, being there, and one of my
companions being going by sea to London, in his father's ship, and
prompting me to go with them, with the common allurement of sea-faring
men, that it should cost me nothing for my passage, I
consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them
word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without
asking God's blessing, or my father's, without any consideration of
circumstances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the
first of September, 1651, I went on board a ship bound for London.
Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe began sooner, or
continued longer than mine. The ship was no sooner gotten out of the
Humber, but the wind began to blow, and the waves to rise in a most
frightful manner; and as I had never been at sea before, I was most
inexpressibly sick in body, and terrified in my mind. I began now
seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how justly I was
overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for my wicked leaving my
father's house, and abandoning my duty; all the good counsel of my
parents, my father's tears and my mother's entreaties, came now
fresh into my mind, and my conscience, which was not yet come to the
pitch of hardness which it has been since, reproached me with the
contempt of advice and the breach of my duty to God and my father.
All this while the storm increased, and the sea, which I had never
been upon before, went very high, though nothing like what I have seen
many times since; no, nor like what I saw a few days after. But it was
enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had never
known anything of the matter. I expected every wave would have
swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought,
in the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; and
in this agony of mind I made many vows of resolutions, that if it
would please God here to spare my life this one voyage, if ever I
got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my
father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived; that I would
take his advice, and never run myself into such miseries as these
any more. Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the
middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had lived all his
days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea, or troubles on
shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go
home to my father.
These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the storm
continued, and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind was
abated and the sea calmer, and I began to be a little inured to it.
However, I was very grave for all that day, being also a little
sea-sick still; but towards night the weather cleared up, the wind was
quite over, and a charming fine evening followed; the sun went down
perfectly clear, and rose so the next morning; and having little or no
wind, and a smooth sea, the sun shining upon it, the sight was, as I
thought, the most delightful that ever I saw.
I had slept well in the night, and was now no more sea-sick but very
cheerful, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so wrought and
terrible the day before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in so
little time after. And now lest my good resolutions should continue,
my companion, who had indeed enticed me away, comes to me: "Well,
Bob," says he, clapping me on the shoulder, "how do you do after it? I
warrant you were frighted, wa'n't you, last night, when it blew but
a capful of wind?" "A capful, d'you call it?" said I; It was a
terrible storm." "A storm, you fool you," replied he; "do you call
that a storm? Why, it was nothing at all; give us but a good ship
and sea-room, and we think nothing at all; give us but a good ship and
sea-room, and we think nothing of such a squall of wind as that; but
you're but a fresh-water sailor, Bob. Come, let us make a bowl of
punch, and we'll forget all that; d'ye see what charming weather
'tis now?" To make short this sad part of my story, we went the old
way of all sailors; the punch was made, and I was made drunk with
it, and in that one night's wickedness I drowned all my repentance,
all my reflections upon my past conduct, and all my resolutions for my
future. In a word, as the sea was returned to its smoothness of
surface and settled calmness by the abatement of that storm, so the
hurry of my thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions of being
swallowed up by the sea being forgotten, and the current of my
former desires returned, I entirely forgot the vows and promises
that I made in my distress. I found indeed some intervals of
reflection, and the serious thoughts did, as it were, endeavor to
return again sometime; but I shook them off, and roused myself from
them as it were from a distemper, and applying myself to drink and
company, soon mastered the return of those fits, for so I called them,
and I had in five or six days got as complete a victory over
conscience as any young fellow that resolved not to be troubled with
it could desire. But I was to have another trial for it still; and
Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to leave me
entirely without excuse. For if I would not take this for a
deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most
hardened wretch among us would confess both the danger and the mercy.
Reflection Questions: As always, please answer each of the following questions in full and complete sentences in the free response box below.
1. What do you learn about Robinson Crusoe from this passage? What are at least two examples of how Defoe reveals Crusoe's character to the reader?
2. What do you learn about Robinson’s relationship with his parents from this excerpt?
3. How does Robinson respond to the storm? How would you react in a similar situation?
4. How does his attitude change after the storm has ended and the sea is calm?
5. Based the last sentence and your prior knowledge, what do you predict will happen next?
6. If you were going to be stranded on desert island, what three things and one person would you like to have with you?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Class Notes March 25th
TODAY’S OBJECTIVES:
REVIEW THE PURPOSE OF SATIRICAL WRITING
INTRODUCTION TO CERVANTES AND DON QUIXOTE
English 12
March 25, 2008
Upcoming Assignments:
* Due 3/24: Letter to the Editor
* Due 3/27: Your Turn at Satire
* Due 3/28: Introduction to Don Quixote
* Due 4/01: Don Quixote Reflection Questions
Novel for the 4th Marking Period
* 1984 With Connections: With Connections (Hrw Library) (Hardcover)
by George Orwell (Author)
* The full is available online, but having the actual novel will make for a much better experience. You can purchase any edition from a book store or website. Local libraries will also have copies.
* BUY THE BOOK!!!
* Used copies can be purchased from Amazon for $1.20.
Creating your own Satire
* First, describe the problem. What is one of the major problems in the world today? What is something that is really negatively impacting the way people live their lives? What do you think is wrong with the world? Give examples and descriptions of the problem.
* Second, suggest a solution for the problem. Your solution should be extreme and outrageous. Don't worry about offending anyone (You can't get much more offensive that suggesting that we eat children!) Think sarcastically-- what would be a crazy way to solve the problem? The reader should think "No way! We don't want that solution!" Then, they will be forced to think about how to really solve the problem.
* Third, give reasons that your solution would be successful. Give at least two reasons why you feel your solution will be effective. Imagine what life will be like when your solution is put into effect. (Think positive! Don't think about the negative stuff that might happen-- Remember, you are trying to convince people to do it) This is your chance to be an unreliable narrator.
Creating a Satirical Essay
Student Example: Stating the Problem
Education systems all around the world are failing to meet the needs of students. This is an important factor for every society and especially for the United States. The education system here has always been faulty, but the problem is more serious now with the extreme pressure coming from international competition. There are few educational systems out there that are really suited to help the specific needs of students. The dropout rate in the USA has risen consistently over the last 20 years and it shows no sign of improvement. In the past, students only needed basic skills for the American manufacturing economy. A young person graduating from high school could be confident that they would earn a decent living with minimal education. This is no longer true in the globalized economy. Nowadays, young people need to go to college and/or acquire specialized skills if they want to survive on their own and make real money. We must ask ourselves, how can we improve the graduation rate and meet the diverse needs of American students?
Possible Solutions
* Reasonable Options:
* Extreme Options:
The Proposal
* Would it be outrageous if every child was home-schooled by a robot? I say NO it would not be! Students would achieve all their educational requirements and goals much more efficiently and economically. They would also learn to explore and examine more of life and become innovative thinkers. The robots would help keep them on track and guide them through their schoolwork. Getting rid of inefficient human teachers and traditional curriculum timelines would increase educational effectiveness. Getting rid of traditional schools would save billions of dollars.
* A huge improvement will be seen in student performance and skill acquisition. The robots will take control and effectively deliver every piece of data students need to learn in a systematic way. These robots will produce highly skilled students that are able compete in the job market and with students from other countries.
What is Satire?
* SATIRE A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
* Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different—often the opposite of what he or she has said.
* PARODY The imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction. Parodies usually use exaggeration or inappropriate subject matter to make a serious style seem ridiculous.
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
What is the purpose of Satire?
The Sting of Satire
* Introduction to the genre on pages 462 – 485 in your text book.
* Satirists make fun of vicious, selfish, mean-spirited people in the hope that we will see aspects of ourselves in such people and mend our ways. Thus, satirists perform an important function in society: They expose errors and absurdities that we no longer notice because custom and familiarity have blinded us to them.
The Timeline
* Timeline
* Rape of the Lock:
* 1702 Alexander Pope
Scathing Humor: The Weapon of the Satirist
* One of the most useful techniques available to the satirist is parody, a mocking imitation of a writer’s style or of a particular genre.
* Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, for example, parodies the epic style to describe the theft of a lock of hair.
* Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote (see page 475) parodies the chivalric romance, finding its satire in the incongruity that arises from the clash between the romantic and the real. Parody can only be used successfully by writers who are familiar with many works of literature and who understand and appreciate style.
Cervantes’ Masterpiece
Who is Cervantes?
* Where is he from?
* What incredible events happened in his life?
Don Quixote
* When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, stories of romantic love and knightly adventure stories were very popular. In these stories, knights fought villains, dragons, and monsters, and went on quests in honor of ladies to whom they had sworn their love. Such heroes stood for military values such as honor, courage, and loyalty, combined with values such as piety, courtesy, and chastity. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote as a parody of those stories.
Reason for the Parody
* The narrator tells us that Don Quixote read so many romances that “his brain dried up.” Many passages from such tales are so convoluted that “Aristotle himself would not have been able to understand them, even if he had been resurrected for that sole purpose.” Wickedly, Cervantes quotes literally from a tale by a sixteenth-century writer whose language is so exaggerated that Cervantes does not need to embellish it further
To Dream a Little Dream
* In the story, Quixote, a quiet man who likes to read a lot, dreams of being a knight and saving the world. That is his "impossible dream." As stated above, we all have impossible dreams.
* What is yours? (What would you do if you could be anyone and do anything?)
Background for Don Quixote
* According to legend, it was while he was in jail that the idea for Don Quixote came to Cervantes. His hero, Don Quixote, is a poor, aging landowner who reads nothing but romantic tales of chivalry. As he teeters on the edge of insanity, the old man becomes convinced that he is a knight-errant, even though the age of knights is long past.
* The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha was published in January of 1605 and immediately caused a sensation. Once the first edition sold out, pirated (illegally printed) copies began to appear. Six editions were issued in the first year, and translations into French and English appeared within ten years. It seemed that everyone in Spain, and soon everyone in Europe, was laughing at the adventures of the ridiculous knight Don Quixote.
REVIEW THE PURPOSE OF SATIRICAL WRITING
INTRODUCTION TO CERVANTES AND DON QUIXOTE
English 12
March 25, 2008
Upcoming Assignments:
* Due 3/24: Letter to the Editor
* Due 3/27: Your Turn at Satire
* Due 3/28: Introduction to Don Quixote
* Due 4/01: Don Quixote Reflection Questions
Novel for the 4th Marking Period
* 1984 With Connections: With Connections (Hrw Library) (Hardcover)
by George Orwell (Author)
* The full is available online, but having the actual novel will make for a much better experience. You can purchase any edition from a book store or website. Local libraries will also have copies.
* BUY THE BOOK!!!
* Used copies can be purchased from Amazon for $1.20.
Creating your own Satire
* First, describe the problem. What is one of the major problems in the world today? What is something that is really negatively impacting the way people live their lives? What do you think is wrong with the world? Give examples and descriptions of the problem.
* Second, suggest a solution for the problem. Your solution should be extreme and outrageous. Don't worry about offending anyone (You can't get much more offensive that suggesting that we eat children!) Think sarcastically-- what would be a crazy way to solve the problem? The reader should think "No way! We don't want that solution!" Then, they will be forced to think about how to really solve the problem.
* Third, give reasons that your solution would be successful. Give at least two reasons why you feel your solution will be effective. Imagine what life will be like when your solution is put into effect. (Think positive! Don't think about the negative stuff that might happen-- Remember, you are trying to convince people to do it) This is your chance to be an unreliable narrator.
Creating a Satirical Essay
Student Example: Stating the Problem
Education systems all around the world are failing to meet the needs of students. This is an important factor for every society and especially for the United States. The education system here has always been faulty, but the problem is more serious now with the extreme pressure coming from international competition. There are few educational systems out there that are really suited to help the specific needs of students. The dropout rate in the USA has risen consistently over the last 20 years and it shows no sign of improvement. In the past, students only needed basic skills for the American manufacturing economy. A young person graduating from high school could be confident that they would earn a decent living with minimal education. This is no longer true in the globalized economy. Nowadays, young people need to go to college and/or acquire specialized skills if they want to survive on their own and make real money. We must ask ourselves, how can we improve the graduation rate and meet the diverse needs of American students?
Possible Solutions
* Reasonable Options:
* Extreme Options:
The Proposal
* Would it be outrageous if every child was home-schooled by a robot? I say NO it would not be! Students would achieve all their educational requirements and goals much more efficiently and economically. They would also learn to explore and examine more of life and become innovative thinkers. The robots would help keep them on track and guide them through their schoolwork. Getting rid of inefficient human teachers and traditional curriculum timelines would increase educational effectiveness. Getting rid of traditional schools would save billions of dollars.
* A huge improvement will be seen in student performance and skill acquisition. The robots will take control and effectively deliver every piece of data students need to learn in a systematic way. These robots will produce highly skilled students that are able compete in the job market and with students from other countries.
What is Satire?
* SATIRE A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
* Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different—often the opposite of what he or she has said.
* PARODY The imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction. Parodies usually use exaggeration or inappropriate subject matter to make a serious style seem ridiculous.
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
What is the purpose of Satire?
The Sting of Satire
* Introduction to the genre on pages 462 – 485 in your text book.
* Satirists make fun of vicious, selfish, mean-spirited people in the hope that we will see aspects of ourselves in such people and mend our ways. Thus, satirists perform an important function in society: They expose errors and absurdities that we no longer notice because custom and familiarity have blinded us to them.
The Timeline
* Timeline
* Rape of the Lock:
* 1702 Alexander Pope
Scathing Humor: The Weapon of the Satirist
* One of the most useful techniques available to the satirist is parody, a mocking imitation of a writer’s style or of a particular genre.
* Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, for example, parodies the epic style to describe the theft of a lock of hair.
* Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote (see page 475) parodies the chivalric romance, finding its satire in the incongruity that arises from the clash between the romantic and the real. Parody can only be used successfully by writers who are familiar with many works of literature and who understand and appreciate style.
Cervantes’ Masterpiece
Who is Cervantes?
* Where is he from?
* What incredible events happened in his life?
Don Quixote
* When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, stories of romantic love and knightly adventure stories were very popular. In these stories, knights fought villains, dragons, and monsters, and went on quests in honor of ladies to whom they had sworn their love. Such heroes stood for military values such as honor, courage, and loyalty, combined with values such as piety, courtesy, and chastity. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote as a parody of those stories.
Reason for the Parody
* The narrator tells us that Don Quixote read so many romances that “his brain dried up.” Many passages from such tales are so convoluted that “Aristotle himself would not have been able to understand them, even if he had been resurrected for that sole purpose.” Wickedly, Cervantes quotes literally from a tale by a sixteenth-century writer whose language is so exaggerated that Cervantes does not need to embellish it further
To Dream a Little Dream
* In the story, Quixote, a quiet man who likes to read a lot, dreams of being a knight and saving the world. That is his "impossible dream." As stated above, we all have impossible dreams.
* What is yours? (What would you do if you could be anyone and do anything?)
Background for Don Quixote
* According to legend, it was while he was in jail that the idea for Don Quixote came to Cervantes. His hero, Don Quixote, is a poor, aging landowner who reads nothing but romantic tales of chivalry. As he teeters on the edge of insanity, the old man becomes convinced that he is a knight-errant, even though the age of knights is long past.
* The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha was published in January of 1605 and immediately caused a sensation. Once the first edition sold out, pirated (illegally printed) copies began to appear. Six editions were issued in the first year, and translations into French and English appeared within ten years. It seemed that everyone in Spain, and soon everyone in Europe, was laughing at the adventures of the ridiculous knight Don Quixote.
Class Notes March 14th
TODAY’S OBJECTIVES:
FINAL ANALYSIS OF A MODEST PROPOSAL
PREPARATION FOR EDITORIAL WRITING
English 12
March 14, 2008
Upcoming Assignments:
* Due Thursday March 13:
* Modest Proposal Response Questions
* Due Monday March 24:
* Letter to the Editor
* Due Thursday March 27:
* Your Turn at Satire
Spring Break
* No school, No chats, No assignments!!!
* From March 17th to the 21st
* I will be away for the week and unable to answer emails or grade assignments.
* Have a great week! I hope you relax and have fun!
WHAT IS THE MODERN RELEVANCE OF THIS ESSAY?
IS THERE A GOOD REASON TO READ IT?
Why would I ask you to read an essay about eating children?
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS?
WHAT ARE OTHER EXAMPLES OF WORKS WITH UNRELIABLE NARRATOR?
How do you know when you have an unreliable narrator?
Unreliable?
* Self-Interested
* Biased Towards the Subject Matter
* Uses Derogatory Terms
* Uses Faulty Logic
How is the narrator of the Modest Proposal unreliable?
Conclusion
* 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. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past childbearing.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE?
WHAT IS THE EFFECT?
Why do authors use unreliable narrators?
Swift’s Real Ideas page 436
* Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients:
* Of taxing our absentees49 at five shillings a pound;
* of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture; of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury;
* of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo;52
* of quitting our animosities, and factions,53 nor act any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city54 was taken;
* of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing;
* of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy toward their tenants.
* Lastly of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shopkeepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact55 upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.
Letter to the Editor
Practice writing a "letter to the editor," but you are going to do so from the viewpoint of a person in 1729: A person who has just read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" in the Irish Times Newspaper. Now is your time to "let go" and express all of your opinions!
* Suggestions:
* First, brainstorm by making a list of three or four things you either strongly agree with or strongly disagree with in Swift's proposal. Then, think of ways you can either refute (disprove or disagree with) or back-up those points.
* In your first paragraph, you should say WHY you are writing, and you should IDENTIFY yourself.
* In the second paragraph, you should share your opinions.
* In the third paragraph, you should sum things up, and end with a bang-- Try to end with a good, strong sentence.
Who will you be? And Why?
* Assignment:
* Write a letter to the editor of the Irish Times, expressing either your agreement or disagreement with Jonathan Swift and his "modest proposal." Choose a date in 1729, and share your views on the matter. Write as if you are the mother of a baby, a farm worker, a landlord or any other person who might have an interest in the matter. Your letter should be at least 200 words.
WHY OR WHY NOT?
Will you be reliable or unreliable?
Making a Modern Connection
* What are the most pressing problems in the world today?
* Poverty
* Economy
* War in the Middle East
* AIDS
* What are solutions?
* Free Market vs. Communist
* Diplomacy vs. Annihilation
* Drugs vs. Abstinence
Create Your Own Satire
* First, describe the problem. What is one of the major problems in the world today? What is something that is really negatively impacting the way people live their lives? What do you think is wrong with the world? Give examples and descriptions of the problem.
* Second, suggest a solution for the problem. Your solution should be extreme and outrageous. Don't worry about offending anyone (You can't get much more offensive that suggesting that we eat children!) Think sarcastically-- what would be a crazy way to solve the problem? The reader should think "No way! We don't want that solution!" Then, they will be forced to think about how to really solve the problem.
* Third, give reasons that your solution would be successful.
Building a Satirical Response
Satire
What is it again?
* SATIRE A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
* Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different—often the opposite of what he or she has said.
* PARODY The imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction. Parodies usually use exaggeration or inappropriate subject matter to make a serious style seem ridiculous.
Who is Swift?
* 1667 – 1745
* Anglo-Irish Protestant
* Served as a Priest in rural Ireland before being made Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Swift justified these pro-Irish writings:
* “What I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of slavery, folly, and baseness about me, among which I am forced to live.”
What is the proposal?
* A Modest Proposal was written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who is well-known as the author of the satirical political fantasy, Gulliver's Travels.
* Swift published the Modest Proposal in 1729 as a pamphlet (a kind of essay in an unbound booklet).
* At this time, and for many years afterward, Ireland (not an independent country) was far poorer than England. Most people born there were Roman Catholics and employed as agricultural laborers or tenant farmers. The landlords (landowners) were paid from the produce of the land, at rates which the workers could rarely afford. This ruling class were usually Protestants. Many of them were not born in Ireland, nor did they live there permanently.
Background
* Swift assumes the voice of a practical economic planner.
* He pretends to be objective, full of common sense, even sensitive and kind.
* It is this difference between sober, straightforward style and appalling content that gives Swift’s pamphlet its force.
Map of the Area
The Text
* FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
* It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town,1 or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.2 These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling, to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up either turn thieves for want3 of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender4 in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.5
*
* I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children, in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
* #1. What problem does the speaker describe in the first two paragraphs?
Unreliable Narrator
* Self-Interested
* Biased Towards the Subject Matter
* Uses Derogatory Terms
* Uses Faulty Logic
FINAL ANALYSIS OF A MODEST PROPOSAL
PREPARATION FOR EDITORIAL WRITING
English 12
March 14, 2008
Upcoming Assignments:
* Due Thursday March 13:
* Modest Proposal Response Questions
* Due Monday March 24:
* Letter to the Editor
* Due Thursday March 27:
* Your Turn at Satire
Spring Break
* No school, No chats, No assignments!!!
* From March 17th to the 21st
* I will be away for the week and unable to answer emails or grade assignments.
* Have a great week! I hope you relax and have fun!
WHAT IS THE MODERN RELEVANCE OF THIS ESSAY?
IS THERE A GOOD REASON TO READ IT?
Why would I ask you to read an essay about eating children?
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS?
WHAT ARE OTHER EXAMPLES OF WORKS WITH UNRELIABLE NARRATOR?
How do you know when you have an unreliable narrator?
Unreliable?
* Self-Interested
* Biased Towards the Subject Matter
* Uses Derogatory Terms
* Uses Faulty Logic
How is the narrator of the Modest Proposal unreliable?
Conclusion
* 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. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past childbearing.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE?
WHAT IS THE EFFECT?
Why do authors use unreliable narrators?
Swift’s Real Ideas page 436
* Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients:
* Of taxing our absentees49 at five shillings a pound;
* of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture; of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury;
* of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo;52
* of quitting our animosities, and factions,53 nor act any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city54 was taken;
* of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing;
* of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy toward their tenants.
* Lastly of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shopkeepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact55 upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.
Letter to the Editor
Practice writing a "letter to the editor," but you are going to do so from the viewpoint of a person in 1729: A person who has just read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" in the Irish Times Newspaper. Now is your time to "let go" and express all of your opinions!
* Suggestions:
* First, brainstorm by making a list of three or four things you either strongly agree with or strongly disagree with in Swift's proposal. Then, think of ways you can either refute (disprove or disagree with) or back-up those points.
* In your first paragraph, you should say WHY you are writing, and you should IDENTIFY yourself.
* In the second paragraph, you should share your opinions.
* In the third paragraph, you should sum things up, and end with a bang-- Try to end with a good, strong sentence.
Who will you be? And Why?
* Assignment:
* Write a letter to the editor of the Irish Times, expressing either your agreement or disagreement with Jonathan Swift and his "modest proposal." Choose a date in 1729, and share your views on the matter. Write as if you are the mother of a baby, a farm worker, a landlord or any other person who might have an interest in the matter. Your letter should be at least 200 words.
WHY OR WHY NOT?
Will you be reliable or unreliable?
Making a Modern Connection
* What are the most pressing problems in the world today?
* Poverty
* Economy
* War in the Middle East
* AIDS
* What are solutions?
* Free Market vs. Communist
* Diplomacy vs. Annihilation
* Drugs vs. Abstinence
Create Your Own Satire
* First, describe the problem. What is one of the major problems in the world today? What is something that is really negatively impacting the way people live their lives? What do you think is wrong with the world? Give examples and descriptions of the problem.
* Second, suggest a solution for the problem. Your solution should be extreme and outrageous. Don't worry about offending anyone (You can't get much more offensive that suggesting that we eat children!) Think sarcastically-- what would be a crazy way to solve the problem? The reader should think "No way! We don't want that solution!" Then, they will be forced to think about how to really solve the problem.
* Third, give reasons that your solution would be successful.
Building a Satirical Response
Satire
What is it again?
* SATIRE A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
* Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different—often the opposite of what he or she has said.
* PARODY The imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction. Parodies usually use exaggeration or inappropriate subject matter to make a serious style seem ridiculous.
Who is Swift?
* 1667 – 1745
* Anglo-Irish Protestant
* Served as a Priest in rural Ireland before being made Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Swift justified these pro-Irish writings:
* “What I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of slavery, folly, and baseness about me, among which I am forced to live.”
What is the proposal?
* A Modest Proposal was written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who is well-known as the author of the satirical political fantasy, Gulliver's Travels.
* Swift published the Modest Proposal in 1729 as a pamphlet (a kind of essay in an unbound booklet).
* At this time, and for many years afterward, Ireland (not an independent country) was far poorer than England. Most people born there were Roman Catholics and employed as agricultural laborers or tenant farmers. The landlords (landowners) were paid from the produce of the land, at rates which the workers could rarely afford. This ruling class were usually Protestants. Many of them were not born in Ireland, nor did they live there permanently.
Background
* Swift assumes the voice of a practical economic planner.
* He pretends to be objective, full of common sense, even sensitive and kind.
* It is this difference between sober, straightforward style and appalling content that gives Swift’s pamphlet its force.
Map of the Area
The Text
* FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
* It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town,1 or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.2 These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling, to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up either turn thieves for want3 of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender4 in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.5
*
* I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children, in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
* #1. What problem does the speaker describe in the first two paragraphs?
Unreliable Narrator
* Self-Interested
* Biased Towards the Subject Matter
* Uses Derogatory Terms
* Uses Faulty Logic
Class Notes March 11th
TODAY’S OBJECTIVES:
REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF JONATHAN SWIFTS “A MODEST PROPOSAL”
English 12
March 10, 2008
Upcoming Assignments
* Due Tuesday March 11:
* Introduction to the Period Vocabulary Activity
* Due Thursday March 13:
* Modest Proposal Response Questions
* Due Friday March 24:
* Letter to the Editor
Introduction to the Period Assignment
* In the Free Response box below, you will create a group of sentences, paragraph or short story that uses AT LEAST 12 of the 15 vocabulary words from the word bank. Because of its importance in this collection, you MUST use the word satire in your writing.
* You can be creative or literal in your presentation of the words, but your writing must demonstrate an understanding of the time period and the meaning of the vocabulary word. You can use more than one word in each sentence, but you must have a minimum of ten sentences. Be creative!! Please make sure that you carefully proofread your work before you submit it to me. Responses that do reference the time period will be returned.
Collection 4: The Restoration
* Enlightenment
* Reason
* Jonathan Swift
* Revolution
* Augustan
* Robinson Crusoe
* Alexander Pope
* Conservative
* Science
* Sir Isaac Newton
* Satire*
* Elegy
* Ode
* Journalism
* Novels
Introduction to this Literary Time Period pages 406 - 424
* Think the following questions while you are reading…
* In 1660, the English monarchy was restored after nearly twenty years of civil war and repressive Puritan rule. Then plague descended, followed by a devastating fire in London. No wonder, then, that the English were ready for a period of stability in which the conservative values of order, decorum, and clarity were of the utmost importance.
* As you read about this period, look for answers to these questions:
* What was new about the way in which nature was regarded and analyzed in the eighteenth century?
* How did Enlightenment values affect beliefs?
* What new forms of popular literature developed in the eighteenth century?
Excellent Example
* This time period of 1660-1800 has been given several names such as, the Augustan Age, the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. It has been given so many names because this time period was like a Revolution which brought about many new ideas and arts making it a greatly varied time in history as well as demonstrating how people were growing and changing their views of not only themselves but the world as well. In this time, more writers were putting their focus more towards the middle class of society rather than the upper class. These writers began to practice the new profession of journalism. Novels also became popular amongst the middle class, especially with women. Daniel Defoe wrote what is sometimes considered to be the first novel in English, Robinson Crusoe. Such poets as Alexander Pope were well noted for his translation of Homer and was a master of heroic couplet. Jonathan Swift was also a famous writer during this time period creating such works as Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal. As stated by Jonathan Swift, "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own". Satire was something that was greatly making its way around in writings during this time period. Science was also a booming discovery in this time period. Sir Isaac Newton is well noted for describing universal gravitation as well as the three laws of motion.
*
* Catastrophes struck England in the 17th century including a massive fire in London, and an outbreak of the plague. The nation saw a revolution into a period of Enlightenment, or Augustan Age, where the people began to care about the arts, and knowledge again. Authors began to write more about morals and social issues, creating novels. Satires became popular, using irony and other literary techniques to make fun of something or someone. Writers began to write the Ode--a poem that is supposed to be sung and another type of poem known as an Elegy, which has a sadder tone and is meant for mournful times. The general public itself started to think of how certain things could happen, instead of thinking that they were punishments from a superior being. This kind of reasoning that the public began to think of, lead to this age also being known as an Age of Reason. Although there was this movement of more thinking and a new understanding, people generally were conservative, wanting to keep things the way they are with no radicalism. Science began to make more sense, with scientists such as Edmond Halley looking into space and not connecting those events with events in the human world. Religion was also brought into question, with Alexander Pope and other people believing that they should just be content with what is going on, with the philosophy of "Whatever is, is right." Meanwhile, some scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton balanced religion and science by still believing in religion while studying science.
Making a Modern Connection
* What are the most pressing problems in the world today?
* Poverty
* Economy
* War in the Middle East
* AIDS
* What are solutions?
* Free Market vs. Communist
* Diplomacy vs. Annihilation
* Drugs vs. Abstinence
Building a Satirical Response
How can you get people to listen?
* How can you bring about change?
* How can you get people to listen?
* What will you do if they don’t listen?
Satire
What is it again?
* SATIRE A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
* Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different—often the opposite of what he or she has said.
* PARODY The imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction. Parodies usually use exaggeration or inappropriate subject matter to make a serious style seem ridiculous.
Who is Swift?
* 1667 – 1745
* Anglo-Irish Protestant
* Served as a Priest in rural Ireland before being made Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Swift justified these pro-Irish writings:
* “What I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of slavery, folly, and baseness about me, among which I am forced to live.”
What is the proposal?
* A Modest Proposal was written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who is well-known as the author of the satirical political fantasy, Gulliver's Travels.
* Swift published the Modest Proposal in 1729 as a pamphlet (a kind of essay in an unbound booklet).
* At this time, and for many years afterward, Ireland (not an independent country) was far poorer than England. Most people born there were Roman Catholics and employed as agricultural laborers or tenant farmers. The landlords (landowners) were paid from the produce of the land, at rates which the workers could rarely afford. This ruling class were usually Protestants. Many of them were not born in Ireland, nor did they live there permanently.
Background
* Swift assumes the voice of a practical economic planner.
* He pretends to be objective, full of common sense, even sensitive and kind.
* It is this difference between sober, straightforward style and appalling content that gives Swift’s pamphlet its force.
The Text
* FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
* It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town,1 or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.2 These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling, to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up either turn thieves for want3 of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender4 in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.5
*
* I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children, in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
* #1. What problem does the speaker describe in the first two paragraphs?
Unreliable Narrator
* Self-Interested
* Biased Towards the Subject Matter
* Uses Derogatory Terms
* Uses Faulty Logic
At what age are children ready to participate?
* But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets. 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,6 I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true a child, just dropped from its dam,7 may be supported by her milk, for a solar year8 with little other nourishment, at most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging, and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them, in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment9 for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding and partly to the clothing of many thousands.
*
* 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, I doubt,10 more to avoid the expense, than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
#3 What is ironic about the speaker’s comments on stealing?
* The number of souls11 in Ireland being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couples whose wives are breeders, from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples, who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many under the present distresses of the kingdom, but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident, or disease within the year. There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born: 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,12 or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: They can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing until they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts,13 although, I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers,14 as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan,15 who protested to me, that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.16
*
* I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable 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 account17 either to the parents or the kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
* I have been assured by a very knowing American18 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, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee,19 or ragout.20
#4 The speaker “humbly” offers his proposal.
What horrible plan is he actually proposing?
* I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males, which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages; therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may at a year old be offered in sale to the persons of quality, and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
ALLOWING CHILDREN TO STARVE
OR
SWIFT’S RECOMMENDATION
Which is more immoral? Why?
#5 What bias does the speaker of this essay reveal?
* I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh twelve pounds, and in a solar year if tolerably nursed increaseth to twenty-eight pounds.
* I grant this food will be somewhat dear,21 and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured22 most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
* Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after, for we are told by a grave author,23 an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent, than at any other season, therefore reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish24 infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage by lessening the number of papists among us.
In discussing the economics of his proposal, what kind of appeal is the speaker making?
* I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar’s child (in which list I reckon all cottagers,25 laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum,26 rags included, and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work until she produceth another child.
What effect does he expect his word choice to create?
* Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay27 the carcass; the skin of which, artificially28 dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen. As to our city of Dublin, shambles29 may be appointed for this purpose, in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting, although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.
*
* A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on this matter, to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said, that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age, nor under twelve, so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve, for want of work and service:30 and these to be disposed of by their parents if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments, for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable, and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think with humble submission,31 be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves: And besides it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, how well soever intended.
*
* But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Sallmanaazor,32 a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London, above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality, as a prime dainty, and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty’s prime minister of state, and other great mandarins33 of the court, in joints34 from the gibbet,35 at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who, without one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir abroad without a chair,36 and appear at the playhouse, and assemblies in foreign fineries, which they never will pay for; the kingdom would not be the worse.
REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF JONATHAN SWIFTS “A MODEST PROPOSAL”
English 12
March 10, 2008
Upcoming Assignments
* Due Tuesday March 11:
* Introduction to the Period Vocabulary Activity
* Due Thursday March 13:
* Modest Proposal Response Questions
* Due Friday March 24:
* Letter to the Editor
Introduction to the Period Assignment
* In the Free Response box below, you will create a group of sentences, paragraph or short story that uses AT LEAST 12 of the 15 vocabulary words from the word bank. Because of its importance in this collection, you MUST use the word satire in your writing.
* You can be creative or literal in your presentation of the words, but your writing must demonstrate an understanding of the time period and the meaning of the vocabulary word. You can use more than one word in each sentence, but you must have a minimum of ten sentences. Be creative!! Please make sure that you carefully proofread your work before you submit it to me. Responses that do reference the time period will be returned.
Collection 4: The Restoration
* Enlightenment
* Reason
* Jonathan Swift
* Revolution
* Augustan
* Robinson Crusoe
* Alexander Pope
* Conservative
* Science
* Sir Isaac Newton
* Satire*
* Elegy
* Ode
* Journalism
* Novels
Introduction to this Literary Time Period pages 406 - 424
* Think the following questions while you are reading…
* In 1660, the English monarchy was restored after nearly twenty years of civil war and repressive Puritan rule. Then plague descended, followed by a devastating fire in London. No wonder, then, that the English were ready for a period of stability in which the conservative values of order, decorum, and clarity were of the utmost importance.
* As you read about this period, look for answers to these questions:
* What was new about the way in which nature was regarded and analyzed in the eighteenth century?
* How did Enlightenment values affect beliefs?
* What new forms of popular literature developed in the eighteenth century?
Excellent Example
* This time period of 1660-1800 has been given several names such as, the Augustan Age, the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. It has been given so many names because this time period was like a Revolution which brought about many new ideas and arts making it a greatly varied time in history as well as demonstrating how people were growing and changing their views of not only themselves but the world as well. In this time, more writers were putting their focus more towards the middle class of society rather than the upper class. These writers began to practice the new profession of journalism. Novels also became popular amongst the middle class, especially with women. Daniel Defoe wrote what is sometimes considered to be the first novel in English, Robinson Crusoe. Such poets as Alexander Pope were well noted for his translation of Homer and was a master of heroic couplet. Jonathan Swift was also a famous writer during this time period creating such works as Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal. As stated by Jonathan Swift, "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own". Satire was something that was greatly making its way around in writings during this time period. Science was also a booming discovery in this time period. Sir Isaac Newton is well noted for describing universal gravitation as well as the three laws of motion.
*
* Catastrophes struck England in the 17th century including a massive fire in London, and an outbreak of the plague. The nation saw a revolution into a period of Enlightenment, or Augustan Age, where the people began to care about the arts, and knowledge again. Authors began to write more about morals and social issues, creating novels. Satires became popular, using irony and other literary techniques to make fun of something or someone. Writers began to write the Ode--a poem that is supposed to be sung and another type of poem known as an Elegy, which has a sadder tone and is meant for mournful times. The general public itself started to think of how certain things could happen, instead of thinking that they were punishments from a superior being. This kind of reasoning that the public began to think of, lead to this age also being known as an Age of Reason. Although there was this movement of more thinking and a new understanding, people generally were conservative, wanting to keep things the way they are with no radicalism. Science began to make more sense, with scientists such as Edmond Halley looking into space and not connecting those events with events in the human world. Religion was also brought into question, with Alexander Pope and other people believing that they should just be content with what is going on, with the philosophy of "Whatever is, is right." Meanwhile, some scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton balanced religion and science by still believing in religion while studying science.
Making a Modern Connection
* What are the most pressing problems in the world today?
* Poverty
* Economy
* War in the Middle East
* AIDS
* What are solutions?
* Free Market vs. Communist
* Diplomacy vs. Annihilation
* Drugs vs. Abstinence
Building a Satirical Response
How can you get people to listen?
* How can you bring about change?
* How can you get people to listen?
* What will you do if they don’t listen?
Satire
What is it again?
* SATIRE A kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
* Verbal irony occurs when a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something quite different—often the opposite of what he or she has said.
* PARODY The imitation of a work of literature, art, or music for amusement or instruction. Parodies usually use exaggeration or inappropriate subject matter to make a serious style seem ridiculous.
Who is Swift?
* 1667 – 1745
* Anglo-Irish Protestant
* Served as a Priest in rural Ireland before being made Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Swift justified these pro-Irish writings:
* “What I do is owing to perfect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of slavery, folly, and baseness about me, among which I am forced to live.”
What is the proposal?
* A Modest Proposal was written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who is well-known as the author of the satirical political fantasy, Gulliver's Travels.
* Swift published the Modest Proposal in 1729 as a pamphlet (a kind of essay in an unbound booklet).
* At this time, and for many years afterward, Ireland (not an independent country) was far poorer than England. Most people born there were Roman Catholics and employed as agricultural laborers or tenant farmers. The landlords (landowners) were paid from the produce of the land, at rates which the workers could rarely afford. This ruling class were usually Protestants. Many of them were not born in Ireland, nor did they live there permanently.
Background
* Swift assumes the voice of a practical economic planner.
* He pretends to be objective, full of common sense, even sensitive and kind.
* It is this difference between sober, straightforward style and appalling content that gives Swift’s pamphlet its force.
The Text
* FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
* It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town,1 or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.2 These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling, to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up either turn thieves for want3 of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender4 in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.5
*
* I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children, in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
* #1. What problem does the speaker describe in the first two paragraphs?
Unreliable Narrator
* Self-Interested
* Biased Towards the Subject Matter
* Uses Derogatory Terms
* Uses Faulty Logic
At what age are children ready to participate?
* But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets. 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,6 I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true a child, just dropped from its dam,7 may be supported by her milk, for a solar year8 with little other nourishment, at most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging, and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them, in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment9 for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding and partly to the clothing of many thousands.
*
* 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, I doubt,10 more to avoid the expense, than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
#3 What is ironic about the speaker’s comments on stealing?
* The number of souls11 in Ireland being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couples whose wives are breeders, from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples, who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many under the present distresses of the kingdom, but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident, or disease within the year. There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born: 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,12 or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: They can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing until they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts,13 although, I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers,14 as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan,15 who protested to me, that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.16
*
* I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable 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 account17 either to the parents or the kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
* I have been assured by a very knowing American18 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, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee,19 or ragout.20
#4 The speaker “humbly” offers his proposal.
What horrible plan is he actually proposing?
* I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males, which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages; therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may at a year old be offered in sale to the persons of quality, and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
ALLOWING CHILDREN TO STARVE
OR
SWIFT’S RECOMMENDATION
Which is more immoral? Why?
#5 What bias does the speaker of this essay reveal?
* I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh twelve pounds, and in a solar year if tolerably nursed increaseth to twenty-eight pounds.
* I grant this food will be somewhat dear,21 and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured22 most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
* Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after, for we are told by a grave author,23 an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent, than at any other season, therefore reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish24 infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage by lessening the number of papists among us.
In discussing the economics of his proposal, what kind of appeal is the speaker making?
* I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar’s child (in which list I reckon all cottagers,25 laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum,26 rags included, and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work until she produceth another child.
What effect does he expect his word choice to create?
* Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay27 the carcass; the skin of which, artificially28 dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen. As to our city of Dublin, shambles29 may be appointed for this purpose, in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting, although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.
*
* A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on this matter, to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said, that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age, nor under twelve, so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve, for want of work and service:30 and these to be disposed of by their parents if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments, for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable, and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think with humble submission,31 be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves: And besides it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, how well soever intended.
*
* But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Sallmanaazor,32 a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London, above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality, as a prime dainty, and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty’s prime minister of state, and other great mandarins33 of the court, in joints34 from the gibbet,35 at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who, without one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir abroad without a chair,36 and appear at the playhouse, and assemblies in foreign fineries, which they never will pay for; the kingdom would not be the worse.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Heroic Couplets from Pope
1 Music resembles poetry: in each
Are nameless graces1 which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 143–145
2 A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian3 spring.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 215–216
3 Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 335–336
4 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 362–363
5 Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 474–475
6 Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 524–525
7 Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
—An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 95–96
8 ’Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
—Moral Essays, Epistle I, lines 149–150
9 But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!
—The Rape of the Lock, Canto III, lines 125–126
10 Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt4 at all I meet.
—Imitations of Horace, Satire I, Book II,
Are nameless graces1 which no methods teach,
And which a master hand alone can reach.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 143–145
2 A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian3 spring.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 215–216
3 Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 335–336
4 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 362–363
5 Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 474–475
6 Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive, divine.
—An Essay on Criticism, lines 524–525
7 Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
—An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 95–96
8 ’Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
—Moral Essays, Epistle I, lines 149–150
9 But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!
—The Rape of the Lock, Canto III, lines 125–126
10 Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt4 at all I meet.
—Imitations of Horace, Satire I, Book II,
Monday, March 24, 2008
Don Quixote Reflection Questions
Due 04-01-2008.
You can find the excerpt from Don Quixote on page 476 of your online textbook.
Please read the excerpt, and answer the comprehension questions. Answer these reflection questions in the Free Response Box below.
Reading Check:
1. After being knocked down by the windmill, how does Don Quixote explain the fact that he has not killed a giant?
2. What natural human needs does Don Quixote ignore? How does Sancho Panza, in contrast, satisfy those needs?
Thinking Critically
3. Cervantes directly pokes fun at the medieval romance every time Don Quixote obeys one of the rules of knighthood, or "ordinances of chivalry," as he understands them. List three such "rules" that Don Quixote cites.
4. An idealist, or romantic, views the world as he or she thinks it ought to be. A realist views the world as it is. Is Don Quixote an idealist or a realist? What about Sancho Panza? Give evidence from the text.
You can find the excerpt from Don Quixote on page 476 of your online textbook.
Please read the excerpt, and answer the comprehension questions. Answer these reflection questions in the Free Response Box below.
Reading Check:
1. After being knocked down by the windmill, how does Don Quixote explain the fact that he has not killed a giant?
2. What natural human needs does Don Quixote ignore? How does Sancho Panza, in contrast, satisfy those needs?
Thinking Critically
3. Cervantes directly pokes fun at the medieval romance every time Don Quixote obeys one of the rules of knighthood, or "ordinances of chivalry," as he understands them. List three such "rules" that Don Quixote cites.
4. An idealist, or romantic, views the world as he or she thinks it ought to be. A realist views the world as it is. Is Don Quixote an idealist or a realist? What about Sancho Panza? Give evidence from the text.
Alexander Pope: Heroic Couplets
Lesson Questions for Today:
What was Pope's purpose in writing heroic couplets?
For the writers in Alexander Pope's time, the purpose of poetry was to entertain and to instruct. The clearness, elegance, and short length of Pope's poetry guaranteed that people would enjoy and learn from his work. Aside from Shakespeare, Alexander Pope may be the most widely quoted writer in English literature, in part because his rhyming couplets are so pleasing and easy to remember. Pope’s most famous work is a mock epic poem entitled Rape of the Lock. The entire poem is made of heroic couplets.
Today, we are going to read and analyze some heroic couplets by Pope from his most famous works. A heroic couplet is two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. Pope uses heroic couplets to briefly and clearly explain his views on subjects such as human nature, proper education, and good writing.
Take a look at the 10 couplets on page 447 in your text and answer the following questions.
Assignment-- Answer the following questions in the free response box:
1. Paraphrase the second and fourth heroic couplets in your own words.
2. Think of an example of how a little learning could be a dangerous thing. (first couplet)
3. Which couplet do you agree with LEAST? Why?
4. Write a paragraph, giving an example of how one of the heroic couplets relates to a lesson or situation you have experienced in your own life.
5. Write a heroic couplet in Pope's style. Share an opinion on society or life using two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter.
What was Pope's purpose in writing heroic couplets?
For the writers in Alexander Pope's time, the purpose of poetry was to entertain and to instruct. The clearness, elegance, and short length of Pope's poetry guaranteed that people would enjoy and learn from his work. Aside from Shakespeare, Alexander Pope may be the most widely quoted writer in English literature, in part because his rhyming couplets are so pleasing and easy to remember. Pope’s most famous work is a mock epic poem entitled Rape of the Lock. The entire poem is made of heroic couplets.
Today, we are going to read and analyze some heroic couplets by Pope from his most famous works. A heroic couplet is two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. Pope uses heroic couplets to briefly and clearly explain his views on subjects such as human nature, proper education, and good writing.
Take a look at the 10 couplets on page 447 in your text and answer the following questions.
Assignment-- Answer the following questions in the free response box:
1. Paraphrase the second and fourth heroic couplets in your own words.
2. Think of an example of how a little learning could be a dangerous thing. (first couplet)
3. Which couplet do you agree with LEAST? Why?
4. Write a paragraph, giving an example of how one of the heroic couplets relates to a lesson or situation you have experienced in your own life.
5. Write a heroic couplet in Pope's style. Share an opinion on society or life using two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter.
A Modest Proposal
Lesson: A Modest Proposal (Free Response)
Course: English 12 Unit:
Lesson: A Modest Proposal Chapter: Week Six: The Reformation and Jonathan Swift
Lesson Status: This lesson has not been submitted and was due on 03-13-2008 and is now late.
Grade Comments:
Lesson Materials:
Today, you will read "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, and answer some comprehension questions. I would like you to stop at certain points in the proposal to answer questions. Write your answers to these questions in the free response box.
I will be offering help with this assignment in our chat. You may also read "A Modest Proposal" in your textbook on page 430. If you are reading in the textbook, note that I would like you to answer the following questions, which are listed on the right side of the story: 1, 4, 9, 10, 12 in the textbook, and #6 in this lesson.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
IT IS a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
1. What problem does the speaker describe in the first two paragraphs?
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets.
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; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands.
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 I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. 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, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
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.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
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; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
2. The speaker “humbly” offers his proposal. What horrible plan is he actually proposing?
I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.
As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.
A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve; so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service; and these to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me, from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would not answer the charge. 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; and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly), as a little bordering upon cruelty; which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well intended.
But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality as a prime dainty; and that in his time the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court, in joints from the gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their fortunes cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at playhouse and assemblies in foreign fineries which they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance. For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.
Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.
Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.
Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
3. List the six advantages of the speaker’s proposal. Who profits from these “advantages”? Who suffers?
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for Infant's Flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses, and the rest of the Kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the Kingdom. This I freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual kingdom of Ireland, and for no other that ever was, is, or I think, ever can be upon Earth. Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temerance: of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: of quitting our animosities, and factions, nor act any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: of teaching our landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.
4. What is the one objection that Swift thinks readers may have?
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.
But as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expense and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the 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.
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect: I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed forever.
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. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
5. The speaker concludes with an ethical appeal to show that he is fair and trustworthy and has no ulterior motive. What is ironic in this paragraph?
6. What is Swift's true purpose in writing this proposal? (Hint: Remember, it is satirical)
Course: English 12 Unit:
Lesson: A Modest Proposal Chapter: Week Six: The Reformation and Jonathan Swift
Lesson Status: This lesson has not been submitted and was due on 03-13-2008 and is now late.
Grade Comments:
Lesson Materials:
Today, you will read "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, and answer some comprehension questions. I would like you to stop at certain points in the proposal to answer questions. Write your answers to these questions in the free response box.
I will be offering help with this assignment in our chat. You may also read "A Modest Proposal" in your textbook on page 430. If you are reading in the textbook, note that I would like you to answer the following questions, which are listed on the right side of the story: 1, 4, 9, 10, 12 in the textbook, and #6 in this lesson.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC
IT IS a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
1. What problem does the speaker describe in the first two paragraphs?
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets.
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; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands.
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 I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. 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, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
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.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
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; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
2. The speaker “humbly” offers his proposal. What horrible plan is he actually proposing?
I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than at any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of popish infants is at least three to one in this kingdom: and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of papists among us.
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.
Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen.
As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.
A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve; so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service; and these to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me, from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would not answer the charge. 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; and besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although indeed very unjustly), as a little bordering upon cruelty; which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well intended.
But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality as a prime dainty; and that in his time the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court, in joints from the gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their fortunes cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at playhouse and assemblies in foreign fineries which they never will pay for, the kingdom would not be the worse.
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition; they cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it; and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance. For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies; and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate.
Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.
Thirdly, Whereas the maintenance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old and upward, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a-piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.
Fourthly, The constant breeders, beside the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.
Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please.
Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
3. List the six advantages of the speaker’s proposal. Who profits from these “advantages”? Who suffers?
Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.
Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for Infant's Flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses, and the rest of the Kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand.
I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the Kingdom. This I freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual kingdom of Ireland, and for no other that ever was, is, or I think, ever can be upon Earth. Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temerance: of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: of quitting our animosities, and factions, nor act any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: of teaching our landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.
4. What is the one objection that Swift thinks readers may have?
Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.
But as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expense and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the 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.
After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect: I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed forever.
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. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.
5. The speaker concludes with an ethical appeal to show that he is fair and trustworthy and has no ulterior motive. What is ironic in this paragraph?
6. What is Swift's true purpose in writing this proposal? (Hint: Remember, it is satirical)
Your Turn to Create Satire
Due until 03-27-2008
Lesson Questions:
* What is the purpose of writing satire?
* How can we create our own satirical piece?
Remember, Swift did not really think we should eat children! He made such an outrageous suggestion to get people to pay attention to the problems in society.
Take some time to make a list of some problems you think exist in our society.
Today, you are going to write your own satirical editorial!
Use Swift's satire as a model:
First, describe the problem. What is one of the major problems in the world today? What is something that is really negatively impacting the way people live their lives? What do you think is wrong with the world? Give examples and descriptions of the problem.
Second, suggest a solution for the problem. Your solution should be extreme and outrageous. Don't worry about offending anyone (You can't get much more offensive that suggesting that we eat children!) Think sarcastically-- what would be a crazy way to solve the problem? The reader should think "No way! We don't want that solution!" Then, they will be forced to think about how to really solve the problem.
Third, give reasons that your solution would be successful. Give at least two reasons why you feel your solution will be effective. Imagine what life will be like when your solution is put into effect. (Think positive! Don't think about the negative stuff that might happen-- Remember, you are trying to convince people to do it) This is your chance to be an unreliable narrator.
Lesson Questions:
* What is the purpose of writing satire?
* How can we create our own satirical piece?
Remember, Swift did not really think we should eat children! He made such an outrageous suggestion to get people to pay attention to the problems in society.
Take some time to make a list of some problems you think exist in our society.
Today, you are going to write your own satirical editorial!
Use Swift's satire as a model:
First, describe the problem. What is one of the major problems in the world today? What is something that is really negatively impacting the way people live their lives? What do you think is wrong with the world? Give examples and descriptions of the problem.
Second, suggest a solution for the problem. Your solution should be extreme and outrageous. Don't worry about offending anyone (You can't get much more offensive that suggesting that we eat children!) Think sarcastically-- what would be a crazy way to solve the problem? The reader should think "No way! We don't want that solution!" Then, they will be forced to think about how to really solve the problem.
Third, give reasons that your solution would be successful. Give at least two reasons why you feel your solution will be effective. Imagine what life will be like when your solution is put into effect. (Think positive! Don't think about the negative stuff that might happen-- Remember, you are trying to convince people to do it) This is your chance to be an unreliable narrator.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Pa.: Biggest prize left for Democrats
By PETER JACKSON, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama: Welcome to Pennsylvania, a sprawling state with two large cities and a farm region larger than Massachusetts.
Its 12.4 million diverse residents like the kind of face-to-face interaction with candidates more often seen in small caucus states such as Iowa and they're likely to get just that during the seven weeks until they vote in a primary to allocate 158 delegates to the Democratic national convention.
Thanks to Clinton's wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island on Tuesday, Pennsylvania has gone from political afterthought to must-win state for the Democratic presidential contenders.
With just two much smaller contests between now and the state's April 22 primary — in Wyoming and Mississippi — Pennsylvania is in for a marathon of rallies, town-hall meetings, television ads and high stakes get-out-the-vote efforts.
"We're going to get every bit, if not more, than the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire got," boasted Philadelphia lawyer Mark Aronchick, a national fundraiser for Clinton's campaign. Mark Alderman, a national fundraiser for Obama, agreed that Pennsylvania is going to "look more like the Iowa campaign than anything since Iowa."
One additional wrinkle in Pennsylvania: Only Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary; independents, who have strongly supported Obama in other states, are barred. But the campaigns have until March 24 to persuade the state's 984,000 registered voters who are not members of either major party — plus any wavering Republicans — to sign up as Democrats so they can vote in the primary.
The nation's sixth most populous state, Pennsylvania bears many similarities to Ohio, where Clinton defeated Obama handily.
Two major metropolises — Philadelphia in the southeast and Pittsburgh in the southwest — bookend a vast rural region with 58,000 farms on 7.7 million acres — an area larger than Massachusetts.
It's a Rust Belt state largely abandoned by the once-mighty steel, coal and railroad industries. Today, its biggest employers are the federal government, the state government and Wal-Mart, in that order.
Pennsylvania's comparatively high union membership — 13.5 percent of state wage earners compared with 12 percent nationally — and large elderly population — only Florida and West Virginia exceed its 15 percent aged 65 or older — make it fertile ground for Clinton, whose political base is anchored by older white voters and blue-collar workers. The state AFL-CIO estimates a third of the registered voters live in union households.
Only 10 percent of Pennsylvanians are between age 18 and 24, a group that Obama has captured in other states.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama: Welcome to Pennsylvania, a sprawling state with two large cities and a farm region larger than Massachusetts.
Its 12.4 million diverse residents like the kind of face-to-face interaction with candidates more often seen in small caucus states such as Iowa and they're likely to get just that during the seven weeks until they vote in a primary to allocate 158 delegates to the Democratic national convention.
Thanks to Clinton's wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island on Tuesday, Pennsylvania has gone from political afterthought to must-win state for the Democratic presidential contenders.
With just two much smaller contests between now and the state's April 22 primary — in Wyoming and Mississippi — Pennsylvania is in for a marathon of rallies, town-hall meetings, television ads and high stakes get-out-the-vote efforts.
"We're going to get every bit, if not more, than the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire got," boasted Philadelphia lawyer Mark Aronchick, a national fundraiser for Clinton's campaign. Mark Alderman, a national fundraiser for Obama, agreed that Pennsylvania is going to "look more like the Iowa campaign than anything since Iowa."
One additional wrinkle in Pennsylvania: Only Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary; independents, who have strongly supported Obama in other states, are barred. But the campaigns have until March 24 to persuade the state's 984,000 registered voters who are not members of either major party — plus any wavering Republicans — to sign up as Democrats so they can vote in the primary.
The nation's sixth most populous state, Pennsylvania bears many similarities to Ohio, where Clinton defeated Obama handily.
Two major metropolises — Philadelphia in the southeast and Pittsburgh in the southwest — bookend a vast rural region with 58,000 farms on 7.7 million acres — an area larger than Massachusetts.
It's a Rust Belt state largely abandoned by the once-mighty steel, coal and railroad industries. Today, its biggest employers are the federal government, the state government and Wal-Mart, in that order.
Pennsylvania's comparatively high union membership — 13.5 percent of state wage earners compared with 12 percent nationally — and large elderly population — only Florida and West Virginia exceed its 15 percent aged 65 or older — make it fertile ground for Clinton, whose political base is anchored by older white voters and blue-collar workers. The state AFL-CIO estimates a third of the registered voters live in union households.
Only 10 percent of Pennsylvanians are between age 18 and 24, a group that Obama has captured in other states.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Bacon and the True Ends of Skepticism
Long ago, Bacon asserted that science must begin with doubts in order to end in certainties, a paradox that stills leads to misunderstandings about Bacon and about science. Read the full article HERE.
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