Modest or Mad?

In his satirical "A Modest Proposal," Jonathan Swift makes the appalling proclamation that in order for the Irish people to relieve their poverty; they should sell their babies as food.

Now, in order to understand where Swift is coming from, you must understand the situation in Brittan at the time this was written. England had taken control of Ireland and was taxing them to death, literally. The Irish people were oppressed into poverty. Many starved because they had no money for food and their crops and livestock were confiscated by the English.

Swift begins his proposal by dangling a 'worm' in the water. This 'worm' comes in the form of a word picture of a poor woman begging on the side of the street for alms. Behind the woman were several starving children. To most Englishmen at that time, this would have been a common sight. By starting out with a familiar picture, Swift draws his reader in.

Then, Swift lets his reader nibble on the 'worm' a little. He sets out the advantages of his proposal without telling his audience what his proposal is. He entices them by saying that his proposal would make things better by putting the drains on society to use and stopping abortions.

It sounds good, right? Of course it does! Now that everyone is either excited about this idea or at least curious, Swift reveals the hook. Well, how about that? All he wants them to do is a simple thing like sell their children as food! What a great idea!

Are you disgusted yet?

That isn't the end of it. Swift goes on to more reasons that his proposal will work. His arguments would be quite convincing if it weren't for the immoral and appalling nature of the idea.

What was your reaction to "A Modest Proposal"?

"That Part of My Brain Just Doesn't Work"

When I first started reading Mike Rose's essay "I Just Wanna Be Average", I didn't really feel like I could relate because I was home-schooled. I never had classmates who cut up or teachers who didn't care because I was the only student and my mother was my teacher.

Once I got further into the story, I began to think about my college career up until now. I was reminded of my struggle last semester in Math 121 when he wrote,

"The particulars will vary, but in essence this is what a number of students go through, especially those in so-called remedial classes. They open their textbooks and see once again the familiar and impenetrable formulas and diagrams and terms that have stumped them for years. There is no excitement here. No excitement. Regardless of what the teacher says, this is not a new challenge. There is, rather, embarrassment and frustration and, not surprisingly, some anger in being reminded once again of long-standing inadequacies. No wonder so many students finally attribute their difficulties to something inborn, organic: “That part of my brain just doesn’t work.” Given the troubling histories many of these students have, it’s miraculous that any of them can lift the shroud of hopelessness sufficiently to make deliverance from these classes possible" (pg. 323-324)

I have always struggled with anything above Algebra I and that class just made me feel worse about math. So I tuned it out and slept most of the time. As a result, I barely passed with a D.

There is a lot of truth in that paragraph.

What were some of your reactions to that and similar paragraphs?