A modest analysis of a proposal

Image credit: knowyourmeme

     In his essay, "A Modest Proposal," Dr. Swift is attempting to seize the audience’s attention and direct it toward the state of Ireland during this period in history. Swift wants the audience to understand Ireland’s poverty from three distinct angles: The number of poverty stricken people –which he cleverly inserts during the essay as statistics to support his idea-, the people he holds responsible, and why they are responsible. During the essay Swift’s underlying point hinges on the actions of the landlords present in Ireland at the time. Swift wrote the essay in a carefully worded well-constructed fashion to emulate the voice of the people responsible. The tone of which insinuates on its own how inappropriate the conduct and rational of the landlords was at the time. While Swift doesn't offer any singular solution, he does much to point out the attitude of the land owners involved in Ireland's woes. In the end Swift achieves what he set out to do: create an essay designed from the first sentence to make a joke out of the cultured upper-class while simultaneously pointing out the cold way they treat and view the poor. 

    “I grant this food will be somewhat dear and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.” (Dr. Swift) 

    Although Swift states that skinning and eating children is the best way to deal with the issue of Ireland’s impoverished; it is only with the intention of shocking his readers. He is using this extreme example to both express his views of the essay’s target, and to inspire these people to take a closer look at their actions. This is done by purposing that based on their current activities and efforts, eating children isn't completely far-fetched. 

    While Dr. Swift has a logical solution, its clearly not a rational one. During the essay he offers statistics and prices for all manner of elements in his plan. From the cost of feeding and clothing the poor, to simply how many poor he estimates exist in Ireland at the time. So while he does make an engaging argument, he also all but states his real thoughts. During the final paragraph Swift says he is simply writing the essay for the good of his country, and there is no greater support for that statement than this short quote: 

    “…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.” (Dr. Swift) 

    This is the theme and purpose of the paper summarized in one neat statement. Swift would like the Irish of the period to use their heads and avoid losing everything. Swift would also like the landlords to exercise mercy toward the poor. Granted this statement is in a paragraph about what Swift suspects may be objections to his plan, this is clearly the theme of the whole essay. 

    Swift, Jonathan. “A modest proposal.” 1729. Quotidiana. Ed. Patrick Madden. 19 Dec 2007. 01 Oct 2012 <http://essays.quotidiana.org/swift/modest_proposal/>.

    I would also like to point out that After watching the lecture, I read this whole paper -internally- in the voice of Stephen Colbert. At times I would laugh so hard I was forced to take a break to collect myself. I just thought I would share that experience, and encourage you to not read things in the voice of Colbert, it is unnecessarily difficult and very distracting.

Rhetorical Analysis

I feel that I need to add a small preface to my post, based on my reaction to this commercial so here it goes:

I've been told that I'm a bit of  a skeptic, and rightly so. I don't tend to just jump on board for anything, and I do a lot of research on most everything I consider. Now I'm sure this commercial simply failed miserably because I'm not in it's target audience; this is likely due to the fact that commercials like this are aimed squarely at the -lets call them- skeptically impaired. I can assure you I didn't pick this one looking for a flop. I had just been hearing how great Whole Foods is to patron and decided to see what the hype was about.

In all my years of life to this point, this may be the least effective marketing I've ever witnessed. For one, the emotional appeal seems to be aimed toward getting me excited to go shop for, "whole foods." This misses its mark based simply on my lack of sympathetic excitement; I've never been one to clap just because other people are clapping -unless it's purely in the interest of being polite-. The second glaring issue is its complete lack of establishing any type of credibility for the company that wants my money. I wasn't told how great their company is by the CEO, in fact I didn't even so much as see any of the food they are trying to sell me. All I have is the revolving banter about how excited strangers are about shopping at a store they frequent, that I have literally never seen -no thanks to the ad-. Finally there simply didn't seem to be any logical motivation to shop there presented in the commercial. They didn't purpose one singular reason I should actually walk through the door of the market, or even hint at what is in the store in a lot of respects. I get the idea that there is produce and some meat products, but that is essentially it. Therefore it seems to stand to reason that the commercial simply implies the following: One should be excited about Whole Foods because the people in the commercial are excited. You should shop at Whole Foods because these excited strangers say it's great. Also, you should pretty much just take their word for it, as they are very excited about shopping at Whole Foods. Sorry Whole Foods, I'll pass.

Essay #1

      When I read over the essay topics for the first time, I figured everyone would pick topic two; so in an effort to do something creative, I've chosen topic two. The reason being it was my first impression -ish?- of what was going on in the story. The fact of the matter is I read this as being far more sinister than some repressed, stubborn, inner self character. Maybe one day I'll write my interpretation for kicks, but for now, I chose number two.

Bartleby’s ghostly presence in the story is the result of a breakdown of the narrator’s mind. In fact, Bartleby does not exist at all as an actual scrivener, but instead represents a part of the narrator that he wishes to repress in order to become a more effective and industrious worker.

Below are some of my notes cut and pasted from my original drafts:

Through the entirety of the story Bartleby digs in his heals against anything important the lawyer wants to get done, he's a representation of the Lawyers id -the less socially acceptable Facebook version of ourselves-. Bartleby doesn't want to go away, he is the lawyers frivolous nature, desire to do mundane things. So when the lawyer knows he needs to get something done, he tucks that nagging feeling into a corner and obscures it from sight. The problem occurs when Bartleby starts fighting back, refusuing to be ignored. Suddenly the lawyer is forced to reason with the irrational side of his brain that wants him to stop doing things that he doesn't want to, hence use of the phrase "I prefer not to" time and time again. The lawyer himself needs to read over the copies, he needs to get his mail, the man is very busy, but deep down he "prefers not to." He would rather stare out a window, or just write copies.

The next main point I want to elaborate on is the way in which the other characters react to Bartleby, they are acting like a group of people forced to cope with their bosses new crazy -I word it this way intentionally-. They yell at Bartleby indirectly, they never speak to him, or actually interact with him. 

Another inconsistency with Bartleby being a real person is the way in which Bartleby engages the lawyer himself. At no point in the story is there any physical contact between them. The lawyer always seems to restrain himself from physically assaulting Bartleby, no matter how badly he wants to at times -as if he knows it wouldn't do any good-.

Finally there is the end of the story, the prison that Bartleby is locked up in, this is a representation of the lawyer having finally won, he locked away his less productive side. Even though he still cares about it, and wants to be a person of that sort, he leaves it to starve. Which is a huge tell about the setting of the whole story, and one that I will elaborate on in my completed essay.

That said, i wish all of you luck on your essay, and enjoy a cropped screenshot of the Great Pyramids via Google Earth -I know the pictures weren't required, it's just what I had open for another project-.

Bartleby, The Scrivener

Bartleby, The Scrivener (53)

From Wikimedia

"Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap."

I feel like there is much more going on in this passage than one might first think. Having read the story I have many feelings about what the text is meant to embody, but I will stick to the individual feelings I had about this particulars section -for the most part- (R.53).


I think Melville really wanted to convey his own distaste for the methods with which society approaches anything that falls outside the norm. The lawyer in the story is quite self righteous and arrogant in his viewing of Bartleby.  The story directly conveys the fact that he is driven more by the way people see him, than he is his own motivations.  I don’t think the lawyer is intended to seem malicious, I simply think that of his own explanation, he simply doesn't care about Bartleby in the least. Openly stating that he can “cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval,” it seems to indicate that to this man acts of charity are for the sake of one’s own feelings. It’s as if Melville really wanted to point out the fact that charity for  image sake is repulsive. The way he wrote the lawyer, saying things like “Poor fellow” about Bartleby imply to me that not only is the lawyer self serving and totally insincere; but also that he sees himself as possessing great intellect. As if he is some higher being looking down at his poor creations, so far removed from the thing he observes. In fact during the passage, the lawyer mentions what would happen to Bartleby had he "turned him away," the way it's worded, it's not about Bartleby's interests; it comes off as just another praise of his own intellect and moral high ground. I think we are supposed to detest the lawyer, like Melville is specifically writing a story about how not to think. I also go the impression that when the lawyer states that he “felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition,” he is being honest about how he really feels about Bartleby. Like Bartleby is literally a subhuman thing that he has a serious distaste for. Mind you he would never say such things aloud for fear of not seeming compationate, but a lot of the passage indicates that he isn’t really compassionate at all. I think the lawyer is an embodiment of what Melville views as society. I think he’s trying to point out the way we all act toward anyone or anything that rocks the boat. we feign the required interest, and go through the motions of making it look like we care. Then if that doesn't work, we get angry at whatever the subject is, for being an exception to the norm; we approach the disturbance as an adversary, there to destroy our very way of life. After that fails, we throw money at it, we ignore it, and finally we find a way to lock it away. We must of course do this in a way that leaves us with a clear conscience, so we do so, and then do our best to forget about it. These are all the things I see in the totality of the story. I believe that Melville really wanted us to take a look at just how poorly we handle anything different. This in turn makes me wonder if Melville himself isn't the outsider. As if in a really subtle way, Bartleby isn't just Melville's take on himself.


Bartleby, The Scrivener. A Story of Wall-street, by Herman Melville. First published 1853

On a totally tangent side note: I found this article by cracked.com strangely informative.

Summary and Analysis

“Ah summaries, may you never cease to bore me to death.”  --Me, just now-

Now I certainly understand summaries have a place and use. If I’m trying to decide on a movie after doing absolutely zero research, I am forced to wing it based on the brief rundown provided by the movie studios. Are they going to make it sound like a lot more than it is? Yes, they probably are. Are they going to at least make a rundown promising me “…thrills, chills, romance, and explosions…?” They most certainly will.  Every time I read this type of summary trying to sell me any type of media, I’ve learned to instinctively roll my eyes, and insist they take my money for the afore mentioned promises of entertainment. The action of rolling my eyes however, states my disbelief in what I’m being promised.   Why would I not just jump in head first clapping and giddy? Well it really boils down to my –at times annoying- need to analyze media.

Taken by and used with permission of my brother Jon Baker

You see, when I go to the movies modernly I try really hard to just tell my brain to shut up and watch the pretty moving lights; the problem is it simply refuses to listen. Through the course of the movie I’m usually keeping a mental inventory of each scene that really “stands out.” The reason I make an inventory of these scenes, be they good or laughably bad, is to afterward be able to step back and look at the movie as a whole. After recently being exposed –unwillingly mind you- to the new tween gem “TheHunger Games” I can assure you my inventory was flooded with mental notes by the time the credits started rolling.

If I were to sit here and retell you the plot line you would –fall asleep- probably think the premise sounded interesting, and possibly make the mistake of watching it. If instead I told you that the movie combined adolescent story telling stolen from a Japanese movie franchise, acting that I can only liken to nails on a chalkboard, and an overall premise that crosses the line separating creative and absolute silliness; perhaps you would be a little less inclined. The problem therein is that I still haven’t really provided any reasons why I feel that way. Take for instance my first line about “…adolescent story telling stolen from a Japanese movie…” this statement alone may invoke some curiosity, but it really doesn't do anything to sell you on my point of view.  Instead I should expand the thought, telling you that it’s literally a movie about a world without enough food, so the only logical outcome is society sets up brutal games in which people kill each other over rations. I should also mention that the premise for the movie is stolen primarily from a movie franchise called “BattleRoyale” from twelve plus years ago. Those are some observations that I can use to support my opinion, and while my opinions can be contested, so can my facts. Someone could easily –please don’t by the way, these are only a few examples of what I based my opinion on-  object, saying that Battle Royale was a totally different movie that just so happened to feature teenagers killing each other on an island. Someone could say that the story is the only way mankind could ever get by; I won’t offer anymore examples I just hope you see where I’m going with this.

The point is my “feelings” about the movie are based on my analysis of its components, and my feelings may not be right for everyone. So while I agree that a good analysis should be arguable, I think it’s important to also point out that most analysis is based on your feelings. Rather you think something is amazing, or totally beneath you in some way, I think a lot of it comes down to how you feel about the individual component. If you and a date go to watch Twilight 8 –or whatever one they are on now- you might watch a scene and think to yourself “did that really just happen? Dear God how long was this movie again?” Your date on the other hand may be thinking “He’s dreamy, how did I get suckered into a date with this guy again?” All jokes aside, it’s all in your reactions, the trick for me has always been simply asking myself why I reacted that way. If I think something is completely silly, the next thought to follow is usually a myriad of things that explain why I thought such a thing.

          Anyway, I realize long post is long, so I’ll leave it at that, and if anyone reading is a Hunger Games fan, it’s okay, I like Starship Troopers; and that is a guilty pleasure.