Jonathan Swift

6 Pages 1478 Words

It's Not Insanity, It's Satire
At first glance, Jonathan Swift’s writings are considered nothing more than a big joke, not possible to take seriously. Stories of devouring children, traveling to far-away lands, or giving a detailed account of a thunderstorm can leave readers questioning Swift’s sanity—until they realize the weight of his words and the meanings behind them. Using satire, which the Oxford American Dictionary defines simply as “the use of ridicule or irony or sarcasm in speech or writing,” Swift is able to address many issues which he feels are of importance. Although they are very different works, the poem “A Description of a City Shower” and the novel Gulliver’s Travels are examples of Swift’s satire at its best.
“A Description of a City Shower” discusses the problems that occur when it rains in London. Each stanza describes a different part of the storm, starting from the very first signs going all the way to its effects on the people. The first 12 lines discuss the warning signs that a storm is approaching: cats stop chasing their tails and head for safety, and people’s old aches and pains start bothering them again. Those who are able take cover, while the rest hurry to go home. The storm begins in lines 13-30. A man walks down the street in an effort to escape the storm while a careless woman dumps her bucket of dirty water out the window, onto the man. Once trying desperately to escape the foul weather, the man now finds himself dirty, wet and defeated. Lines 31-63 deal with the effects of the storm and what happens in the city. When Swift writes, “Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs / Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs” (41-42), he could be referring to them in two ways, one being an ideal view; where the two opposing political parties join together for once instead of letting their political views stand in their way. Another possibility, however, is that S...