Argumentation

“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift is often given as an example of argumentative language for the genre of satire. This is why it is important to address how the sender presents his arguments in the text.

In the case of “A Modest Proposal”, it is important to differentiate between the sender, Jonathan Swift, and the speaker of the essay who is a persona that he assumes.

As the author and sender of the text, Jonathan Swift uses hidden argumentation. This means that his arguments are not directly presented, but left to the readers to infer. However, the speaker in the text uses the direct argumentation to argue for the exact opposite. In other words, all the direct argumentation of the speaker should be interpreted as the exact opposite when it comes to the author’s intention. The author wa...