Swift Essay Tenative Thesis Paragraph

Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a political satire written in response to the disturbing state of affairs in Ireland during the Irish-English war. In the text Swift uses the appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos to effectively portray his point that the actions of the English in the aftermath of the war were morally wrong. Along with these more concrete persuasions, Swift uses an abundance of mockery, a grotesque solution, and a diatribe on the English to degrade their country. Swift successfully communicates to his audience his utter disgust at their behavior and fulfills his purpose of acknowledging the demonic nature of their wrongdoing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War

                                                      Jonathan Swift by Charles Jervas
Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a satire written about the economics during this time period in Ireland. Swift’s biggest problem with his society is the poor. With beggars all over and each of these people have four, five, or six children each. He talks about these children growing up to be thieves, or to go fight for the Spanish. He highly dislikes this behavior because he thinks that these beggars simple become “breeders” which makes them beg for more money because they continue to have more and more mouths to feed. Swift proposes that they should just eat the babies. He tries to convey this as a profitable way of doing things. Since each baby can live off its mothers milk for one solar year with little other sustenance, raising them to one year old should be cheap. And after they turn one, they should be sold for meat which would net an eight shilling profit.
    Swift is not serious about this proposal. The essay is written as a satire. The purpose of this suggestion is to get people to look more deeply at the state of poverty in Ireland and how it is seemingly perpetual. He tries to get across the point that how the poor are acting and being treated is violent and morally wrong. He goes as far as saying that the actions of the Irish is borderline cannibalistic. Overall he is making fun of how nothing beneficial is being done for the massive amount of poverty stricken people in Ireland.
    Swift’s proposal for eating the children was not at all logical. He did not mean it to be taken as a serious or logical argument. The majority of the evidence that Swift puts out for this not being a serious and or logical proposal is his tone through out the essay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift

I chose an etrade commercial from the years super bowl. I find this commercial to be effective. In my opinion this commercial has an audience of people from about their late 20's and up. The commercial is for an investment agency which makes targeting this audience a must. The humor used in the commercial reaches all these generations, what is more funny than a talking baby? The purpose of this commercial is to draw people into the investment agency. It does this by having the baby show all the different ways one could foolishly spend all of their money, then he talks about just saving the money. The audience is drawn to the saving aspect of the commercial. Overall, this commercial definitely works for me.

The thesis I chose to write about is "Bartleby is the hero of Melville’s story in his refusal to participate in a workplace that represents the sad, dreary atmosphere of a bureaucratic, industrialized society. He is the only one standing up to a society that is increasingly oppressive to workers."

I chose this thesis because it is the main theme of the story that I picked up on when reading it. Bartleby's rouge thinking and actions around his employer are unlike any of the others in the story. Unlike Turkey and Nippers, Bartleby refuses to do the normal work that a law-copyist would do. Bartleby is the only one to stand up for his beliefs in a society that does not accept them.

“I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds.” Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street    pg. 4.
    This passage sets the tone for a main theme that I found in the story. The theme being one of money and power that was rarely found in this time. But, the power also drove those who had it to have certain expectations of how some should act. Later in the story we see that these expectations of response are smashed and “disobeyed” by Bartleby, throwing the lawyer into great confusion.
    The story is told in first person by the lawyer who gives his account of a scrivener whom he took on for hire named Bartleby. The lawyer speaks of Bartleby as different from the other copyists and scriveners he has had in his employment before. The lawyer skips talking about most scriveners and goes straight to comparing Bartleby to the three others that he has in his employment.
    The theme that is found to be very prominent in this story is Bartleby’s desire to not conform to what is seen as the proper working man in the society he lives in. In the story the lawyer asks a task of Bartleby, to which he simply replies “I would prefer not to.” Among this statement and a earlier back and forth between Bartleby and the lawyer where the lawyer is asking Bartleby what he would like to do for a profession further drives this theme home.
    While the story can be very confusing, I found the theme of non-conforming to be the main overlying theme of the story. I saw that it was very well laid out and was not at all concealed by Bartleby with his words and actions toward the lawyer.

                                                 Herman Melville 1846 by Asa Twitchell