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Unreliable Narrator
Definition of Verbal Irony
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging outside and someone remarks "what... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean. When there's a hurricane raging... read full definition
Verbal irony occurs when the literal meaning of what someone says is different from—and often opposite to—what they actually mean... read full definition
Verbal Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Abortion and Cannibalism:
Before he outlines in explicit terms the violent nature of his solution, the Proposer describes the types of violence he wishes to circumvent: namely, women aborting the unborn and murdering their bastard children. The Proposer clearly describes this violence in an attempt to generate pathos and make readers sympathetic to his cause and proposed solution:
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas, too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
As with the two other rhetorical devices (logos and ethos) that the Proposer employs, the pathos in this passage is a flimsily-executed facade. The Proposer identifies murder as a "horrid practice" but proceeds to undermine this moral appeal throughout the rest of "A Modest Proposal." This particular passage immediately precedes the Proposer's suggestion of infant cannibalism as a realistic solution, which is equally if not more violent—and stigmatized—than abortion or the murder of bastard children. This reality introduces an element of verbal irony to the above passage, since the language and pathos condemn the Proposer's solution despite being put forward as justification for it, ultimately making it clear to astute readers that he's not being serious.
Related Themes:
