Mr. Donnenwirth
British Literature
15 February 2017
Social Injustices Many social issues in today's society are dealt with by a post on Facebook or with a tweet using Twitter. During the 18th century they dealt with the injustices with writing them down in a essay like in A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift or in a fictional story like Gulliver’s Travels also composed by Jonathan Swift. The essay A Modest Proposal and the fictional story Gulliver’s Travels deal with the injustices that were imposed by either the Emperor or the injustice of having beggars and overpopulation. The Rape Of The Lock deals with a strife between two families which Alexander Pope was asked to write a poem to reconcile the two families. We should …show more content…
A Modest Proposal deals with the over population of England and Dublin, Ireland. Swift has a way to fix the overpopulation, his way to fix the issue is to just sell the children for money and then to have the wealthy people eat the kids. Not only is it getting rid of the overpopulation issue they are also fixing the issue that people are really poor. He states this by saying “when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half a crown at most on the Exchange; which cannot turn to account” (Swift 612-613). Supporting the reason to eat the children Swift introduced the idea of cannibalism. A way to cleanse the nation or, a way to reduce the overpopulation. Swift supports his claim by saying “I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal by which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.” (Swift 616). In A Modest Propsal Swift is telling about the injustices of poverty and overpopulation by stating that if the mothers sell the children to the rich Irishman they can make money that way and then the Irishman can cook the children and have food. Fixing the issue of the poverty and …show more content…
The Rape Of The Lock is a mirror of society and contains social satire as well. He points the satire towards the boy and girls, the men and women, their free time activities, the judges and politicians of the day. Pope narrates how child like and how crazy they were dressing. Pope goes on to say that the world of Belinda or the fashion world is very petty. That the whole world of Belinda is assigned to sleeping all day, putting on too much makeup and charming the lords. Pope is using his satire to ridicule the people of the time and how they dressed. Their daily actions and anything that they do. To enhance the satire that Pope had already established he brought in the ariel machinery. Using the ariel machinery Pope contrasted the weakness of the fashionable women of that age. Not only did Pope use satire to poke at the women and the girls that were interested in the fashion he used it to poke at that they loved their lapdog more than they would have loved their husband and that losing the husband wouldn't have been as hard as if they would've lost expensive china or their lapdog. Pope explains saying “Not louder shrieks to pitying Heave are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their