SATIRE ... is a literary technique in which people's behaviors or society's institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of bringing about social change. It often relies on sarcasm or VERBAL IRONY (when one thing is said but another is clearly meant) to be successful. Satire may come across as a very dry, or even logical set of ideas - but will almost always have a deeply mocking undertone.
- In the 1700s, English rule over Ireland was borderline tyrannical. Poor agricultural conditions in the 1720s resulted in widespread starvation. This society consisted of ... essentially ... the haves and the have nots. The rich and the poor. The poor had no money. The rich had difficulty obtaining food ... THUS, satirist Jonathan Swift penned "A Modest Proposal" to prevent the children of the poor people of Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country and for making them beneficial to the public.
TODAY ... begin reading "A Modest Proposal" in the literature book ... beginning on page 622-631.
After you read, you will select 14 quotes from within the reading - try to find what you feel are the most important sentences from the reading to select - and put them in the "QUOTE" column of the chart provided. You do not have to write the entire sentence - you may/should use ellipsis (...) to condense ... for example in paragraph 1:
"These mothers ... or sell themselves to the Barbadoes."
Then, for each quote, you will explain briefly in your own terms what it means (PARAPHRASE) and explain briefly why it matters to the passage (IMPORTANCE).