Rebellion and Conformity in the Rhetoric of Swift and King

Introduction to the texts

Authorial 'position'

Outsiders

Leaders/literary stylists

Authorial Intent

Satire

Polemic

Authorial Style

Similarities and differences in use of indirect address

Intentions

Concluding Similarities

Jonathan Swift's 1729 "A Modest Proposal" and Martin Luther King's 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" are both works written in protest by authors who were social critics of the contemporary mores of their society. Swift used satire to condemn the callousness exhibited by English society towards the Irish and Irish children. Martin Luther King used direct and forceful polemical prose to attack the conformist ministers of the state of Birmingham where King had come to engage in acts of civil disobedience, in the name of advancing the larger cause of civil rights in America.

Both King and Swift wrote as outsiders to their respective societies. Swift took a negative view, personally and politically,...
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