Satire and the Deployment of Irony in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swi

Satire and the Deployment of Irony in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: of taxing our absentees at 5s. 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 temperance: of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting 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 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, wou ld 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. Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he has at least some glimpse of hope that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice. (Swift 57-58) "A Modest Proposal" has been hailed by literary critics as one of Jonathan Swift's greatest satirical works. The essay takes the form of a proposal that sets out to offer a solution to the problems of overpopulation and poverty in 18th century Ireland, a... ...ff. Hypertext Rhetoric Lesson for Swift's "A Modest Proposal". Updated date unknown. <http://www.du.edu/~jegoldst/html/a_modest_proposal.htm>. Cited 27 March 2004. Hutcheon, Linda. Irony's Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London: Routledge, 1994. Montgomery, Martin et. al. "Irony." Ways of Reading. Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature. London: Routledge, 2000. 161-171. Rose, Margaret A. Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern. Cambridge: CUP, 1993. Swift, Jonathan. "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." "A Modest Proposal" and Other Satirical Works. New York: Dover. Wilson, Deirde & Dan Sperber. "On Verbal Irony." The Stylistics Reader. Ed. Jean Jacques Weber. London: Arnold, 1996. 260-279.

The role of humor in conveying a spiritual message

Humor appears as an important component of literature, since it provides stress-coping strategies and mocks misdemeanor, conveying hypertextual spiritual or moral messages and appealing to human cognition as well as to emotion. The paper is designed to discuss the role of humor in illustrating genuine spirituality and virtuousness, in particular, in Boccaccio’s ‘The Decameron’. The Decameron presents an integrative perspective of social ethos, primarily – through questioning the existing values and seeking alternatives. Morality and spirituality are not necessarily described as dogmas, but rather as the main way of handling unfavorable situations and liberating from burdening conditions. Boccaccio finds that the most convenient and reliable method of proving the necessity of empirical application of universal human values is approaching to social pathology from opposite. The narrators, day by day, demonstrate that deception and trickery either bring additional problems directly to an individual or simply turn into absurd or ridiculous tale. For instance, the fourth tale, narrated on the first day, depicts the divergence between the ‘holiness’ of clergymen and their factual behavior, which is far from ideal (Boccaccio, 2004). The monk is caught sinning, that is to say, his sin deserves the most severe punishment, but the protagonist manages to get rid of any responsibility, putting the blame upon the abbot. On the one hand, the reader is really amazed by the character’s inventiveness, but viewing the situation more broadly, it is possible to presume that the situation itself is extremely awkward, so it would be more reasonable to avoid it through following ethical principles, established for the certain social group. In psychological terms, this technique is known as behavioral learning – i.e. the reader, instead of learning the actual patterns of valued behavior, gets the knowledge about devaluated actions, which merit societal censure. Another prominent example of conveying spiritual message through using humor is the third situation, presented on the third day. In this story the young woman, enamored of a man, creates the conditions, in which she can gratify her feeling through misusing the principles of holy confession (Boccaccio, 2004). In this sense, the protagonist naturally abuses the religious fundamentalism, but this bold actions seems to be favored by the narrator and the author, since in spite of the comic and to some extent unpleasant circumstances, in which she throws her beloved, her cunning plan finally allows her to reveal her true feelings, which indicates that the rules and social bonds are powerless against the really strong feeling and that spirituality can sometimes neglect strict and rigid societal norms. The tenth novel of the third day (ibid) continues the anti-Catholic epopee, as it narrates about the abuse of celibacy. Its humorous tone, however, is aimed at religious dogmas cannot hide or inhibit the real human nature – in this sense, the story demonstrates the faultiness of clerical institution and therefore offers social norms concerning marriage as an alternative to religious dogmas, which appear as theatrical performance (‘putting the Devil into the hell’). More interestingly, the second novel of the fourth day provides the logical continuation of the topic, as it demonstrates the clear interrelation between the monk’s crime and the resulting punishment. This story logically supplements the fact that genuine morality and spirituality are rewarded through depicting the execution of punishment, deserved by genuine and absolute ‘wickedness’. Again, its humorous attitude towards the situation allows the reader to evaluate the protagonist’s action in terms of distinguishing between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. To sum up, Boccaccio’s stories are particularly valuable in terms of conveying moral and spiritual messages, since they allows the reader to draw appropriate conclusions by him/herself through analyzing human experiences, without imposing artificial or abstractive morality. Works cited Boccaccio, G. Decameron, 2004.

According to the Medilexicon’s Medical Dictionary,...

According to the Medilexicon’s Medical Dictionary, Addiction is â€Å"Habitual psychological or physiologic dependence on a substance or practice that is beyond voluntary control†(Nordqvist, 2009). This corresponds to the definition given by the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) that addiction is â€Å"When an individual persists in use of alcohol or other drugs despite problems related to use of the substance, substance dependence may be diagnosed. Compulsive and repetitive use may result in tolerance to the effect of the drug and withdrawal symptoms when use is reduced or stopped. This along with Substance Abuse are considered Substance Use Disorders† (Nordqvist, 2009). Addiction is generally held to be†¦show more content†¦It is shown that the brain experiences pleasure when the habit is repeated which leads to further and more regular use. Physical changes in nerve cells in the brain are the result of addictive abuse. These ‘nerve cells’ are also known as neurons, which release neurotransmitters into the synapses between nerve cells, which are then further received by receptors in other neurons. Put simply, a â€Å"neurotransmitter is a messenger of neurologic data from one cell to another cell† (Nordqvist, 2009). After time, the brain no longer experiences pleasure from a particular substance as the body as built up a tolerance to the substance, hence why experts warn that when tolerances to substances increase, so do the risk of addiction. Numerous scientists now believe that the brain is essentially a Bayesian hypothesis tester. One of it’s main roles is to make predictions regarding what input it expects to receive, following this, it updates these predictions in the light of the actual input. The brain attempts to minimize all prediction error and this kind of process takes place over many different levels of the processing hierarchy within the brain. The brain updates it’s predictions when expected inputs and actual input don’t correspond. It utilizes any divergence between expect and actual inputs to mold and generate its predictions shape. Other psychological processes can also be