English ironist Jonathan Swift ( 1667-1745 ) was born in Ireland of English parents. He was educated in Dublin but before he could repair on a calling. the problems that followed upon the subsequent invasion of Ireland drove Swift with the other Anglo-Irish to England. During these old ages. Swift read widely and discovered his amazing gift as a ironist ( Abrams 1976 ) .

For the remainder of his life. Swift devoted his endowments to political relations and faith – non clearly separated at the clip. and most of his plants were written to further a specific cause ( Abrams 1976 ) . In 1714. he returned to Ireland. became identified with the Irish life. and through such superb booklets as Drapier Letters and A Modest Proposal ( 1729 ) . became virtually a ‘national hero’ ( Hornstein et al 504 ) .

Ireland suffered from a figure of societal. political and spiritual crises that clip when Swift reached a clear sense of his mastermind ; dearth. over-population. Irish’ philistinism to English goods. Protestant’s suppression of Catholics over estate ownership and the Irish authorities being filled by English appointees ensuing to indecision and inactivity of the absorbing status.

Swift who saw the Irish agony for its cause collaborated with his coevalss for whom he established a good friendly relationship. In a missive to Alexander Pope. he declared himself a misanthropist ; a hater of world.

He opposed to the predominating definition of adult male as a rational animate being and offered his new definition of adult male as merely an animate being capable of ground ( Abrams 1978 ) . He antagonised the optimistic position of human nature being basically good and proclaimed it to be profoundly and for good flawed unless humanity would larn to acknowledge its moral and rational restriction.

Analysis: The Misanthrope Mind

Jonathan Swift intended his plants to be an absolute barbarian onslaught upon adult male and his establishments. His most famed plants Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal expressed that personal outrage with minutes of comedy and light-heartedness. though both written every bit much to reform the readers and satirise issues.

Swift was a adult male of the Age of Reason ; nevertheless. he used his concluding to oppose the people’s excess to ground so as to allow it order all classs of human life – therefore recommending to the Restoration of the eighteenth century.

In Gulliver’s Travels. he made merriment of the English society by utilizing satirical symbols that represent the crooked civility of the clip.

Gulliver observed the shriveled humanity through the Lilliputians who have shrunken concerns. For illustration. in Lilliput. campaigners for public office go through their antic athletic rope and stick dances in order to obtain assignment and hold office. “Whoever jumps the highest succeeds while the main curates are commanded to demo their accomplishment to convert the Emperor that they have non lost their faculty” ( Swift Part I Chapter IV p38 ) .

It must be noted though that the author’s “greatest letdown was his failure to go a bishop in England” ( Hornstein et al 504 ) . The system of prefering those of baronial descent in naming for office place must hold influenced the Lilliputians’ pathetic and circus political system.

On Part I Chapter 7. p 74-75. 77. after the tribunal declared Gulliver’s barbarous executing. he tells the readers of “his Majesty giving many Markss of his great lenience and … . clemency for which he was so rightly celebrated” . Swift was evidently satirising the sweet words of those in power to dissemble their evil workss.

An interesting angle could every bit good be derived from the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu. Both provinces were comfortable and have enough to provide the citizens’ needs. Yet they did non populate in peace with each other. In fact. when Gulliver learned of the program to impeach him of high lese majesty. he made an flight to Blefuscu where he was received ( his expatriate from England to Ireland satirized ) .

In exact contrary to his travel to Lilliput was his ocean trip to Brobdingnag – the land of giants wherein all of human defects are magnified. There he realized that a human feature. whether physical or by mode. becomes ‘ugly’ when put to graduated table. The King. who prided on his ability at arithmetic. was a calculative leader who objected the cognition on pilotage. music. military personal businesss. Torahs and political relations. Yet. upon Gulliver’s history of his state. remarked a decision of Gulliver’s “natives to be the most baneful race of small abominable varmint that nature of all time suffered to creep upon the surface of the earth” ( Swift Part II Chapter VI. p147 ) . This is a serious. direct last to the English society.

Then Gulliver led us to a meeting with the Houyhnhnms – a Equus caballus race of the most rational head and ideals who employ the Yahoos – human beasts who are incapable of ground and are hence employed as animate beings ( Gale 370 ) . The Houyhnhnms were considered to be the wisest of all animals and taught Gulliver the impression on truth and falsity.

The Master Houyhnhnm argued that “the usage of address was to do us understand one another and to have information of facts” ( Swift Part IV Chapter IV p273 ) . Liing so defeats the intent of address. Given this. Gulliver accounted the Houyhnhnms or Equus caballuss in his state. being tamed and trained from immature old ages through cruel whipping. in order to do a good tamed Equus caballus for the Yahoos ( worlds ) . He every bit good depict how the Equus caballuss are castrated in order to ‘hinder them from propagating their kind’ ( Swift Part IV Chapter IV p 275 ) . This savageness appalled the Houyhnhnm stating that in their state ; even the Yahoos were less cruelly treated.

This rational interaction between Gulliver and the Houyhnhnms could be a lampoon between Swift and the Enlightenment advocates. With the transcendentalists being excessively logical and ideal. learned of their defects through the rule of truth and logic.

But Swift’s most barbarian sarcasm came out in 1729 with the booklet – A Modest Proposal. After about two decennaries of changeless conflict against the English subjugation towards the Irish Catholics with futility. he resolved to side with the English in a proposal any reader will be caught unprepared ; the English to devour Irish kids.

He was angry with the English absentee landholders who bleed the Irish of everything they have go forthing the Catholic provincials of Ireland hungry and hopeless. He was angry with the Parliament and the English blue bloods who see these impoverished as eye-sores in the street. The advocate. who appears to be naive yet logical and sort. devised a superb program to decrease the foul population of the Papists and increase economic addition.

Swift pointed the followers as causes of the Irish poorness ; the inability of the parents to supply their kids with their demands. the attitude of the English blue bloods towards these unfortunate people. the government’s failure of supplying a significant solution to these jobs and the unmanageable population of papists that tend to hold the largest households.

Yet. the savageness that Swift presented in the booklet established a more sedate statement and therefore. merely made the whole proposition more compelling.

This made Swift a hero to the Irish. the official guardian of the laden Ireland.

However. much to his skeletal humiliation. Gulliver’s Travels TODAY is read with delectation by kids who are enchanted by its inventive narratives about unusual animals instead than its sarcasm for which it was written for. In fact. alternatively of an grownup audience. today’s kids know more about this sarcasm because of the fecund distribution of its sketch version. While A Modest Proposal will stay an stray trade good for import. appreciated entirely as the first and finest of the sarcasm merely a maestro like Jonathan Swift could present.

Decision

Jonathan Swift is an illustration of a author that we can non analyze in isolation from the societal. political and spiritual events of his clip. First. his lone end as a author is to progress his societal. political and spiritual political orientations. Second. he himself is a lampoon of his clip. Like what Immanuel Kant observed that though his age was an Age of Enlightenment. it was non an enlightened age at all ( Gay 53 ) . Therefore. Swift used his mastermind. non to back up the political orientation in trend. but to dispute the deficiency or surplus of logic in all of human activities.

In his characters in Gulliver’s Travels. he implied that worlds in whatever signifier. whether Lilliputian. giant. Equus caballus or beast – are all flawed. Lilliputians with their shriveled ways of making things. the giants in their misplaced amour propres. the horses’ otiose reason on everything and the brutes’ incapableness to ground – all described humanity as basically imperfect.

After reading his plants. a fleeting analysis may allow us believe we have penetrated the head of the mastermind. But after some minutes of careful thought. it feels futile to even seek. Indeed. merely after a perennial reading will a modern-day reader reaches adulthood and learns to appreciate this greatest sarcasm in literary history.