A Meditation Upon a Broomstick by Jonathan Swift

Who is

Source: http://www.online-literature.com/swift/




Other information about Jonathan Swift

• 1700 – Swift became a Chaplain

• 1704 – A Tale of the Tub was published

• 1707 – he asked that Taxation in Ireland be removed

• 1710- Swift joined the Tories and The Conduct of the Allies also appeared.


Other literary works by Swift:

• 1708, The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers

• 1708, Writings on Religion and the Church

• 1713, Cadenus and Vanessa

• 1726, Gulliver’s Travel

• 1744, Three Sermons and Prayers


Pseudonyms used by Swift

anonymously

Isaac Bickerstaff

P E R I O D

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment….

was a confluence of ideas and activities that took place throughout the eighteenth century in Western Europe, England, and the American colonies.

http://www.online-literature.com/periods/enlightenment.php

Enlightenment thinkers believed that the advances of science and industry heralded a new age of egalitarianism and progress for humankind.


The Church, in particular, was singled out as stymieing the forward march of human reason


Many intellectuals of the Enlightenment practiced a variety of Deism, which is a rejection of organized, doctrinal religion in favor of a more personal and spiritual kind of faith


In the Age of Enlightenment….

CRITICISM was the order of the day, and ARGUMENTATION was the new mode of conversation.


Timeline


“

’’

Fourth work of Jonathan Swift.

Short piece essay in just TWO

paragraphs.

Parody of Robert Boyle’s Occasional

Reflections Upon Several Subjects.

INTRODUCTION

BODY

CONCLUSION

General statement and information about the topic.

Support the main ideas of the thesis statement.

Brief summary of the main points of the essay.

The author introduced well the topic of the essay.

“This single stick, which you nowbehold ingloriously lying in thatneglected corner, I once knew in aflourishing state in a forest. It wasfull of sap, full of leaves, and full ofboughs, but now in vain does thebusy art of man pretend to vie withnature by tying that withered bundleof twigs to its sapless trunk.”

Catch the reader’s attention by a simple controversial opinion about ‘The single stick’ which might be about the ‘branch of the tree or a tree’ and ‘man’.

It also introduced the purpose of the essay which is the comparison a tree or a twig or a stick to human.

“...but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk.”

It supports the topic of the essay.

Works together with the other body sentences of the essay.

Discuss only one aspect of the topic which is about the Comparison of a broomstick to human.

Provide evidences to support the topic of the essay.“Surely, mortal man is a broomstick!”“Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition..”

The essay did not introduced new ideas. (Consistent with the main topic).

It reminds the reader about the topic of the essay by restating the introduction on other words. Still, the topic or the main focus of the essay is still consistent which is about the fate or life of a broomstick is just similar to the fate and life a human has.

AUDIENCERefers to whom the essay is intended to.

People / Human

PURPOSERefers to the intention or goal in writing the

essay.

To describe and

compare the fate of a

broomstick to human.

SUBJECTTopic discussed in the

essay

The author reveals his

subject which is

BROOMSTICK.

POINT OF VIEWRefers on how the

ideas are told to the reader.

The author used FIRST

PERSON point of view

THEMERefers to the lesson or message of the essay.

Man’s destiny is

similar to a broomstick ;

it’s either to be kicked

out of the doors or to be

used for the criticism

and abused of others.

TONERefers to the attitude of the author towards

his/her subject.

The author used a

LAMENTING TONE

towards the subject.

TONERefers to the attitude of the author towards

his/her subject.

The author used his

HORATIAN STYLE OF

SATIRE

Swift started the text with “this

single stick” which he used to

know when it was a part of a

beautiful tree, and now it is used

to make things clean by getting

itself dirty.

but now, in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; It’s now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; ’tis now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty it self

Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty,

in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his

head, the proper branches of this reasoning

vegetable, till the axe of Intemperance has

lopped off his green boughs, and left him a

withered trunk: He then flies to art, and puts on

a perewig

His last days are spent in slavery to women, and

generally the least deserving; till worn to the stumps,

like his brother bezom, he is either kicked out of

doors, or made use of to kindle flames, for others to

warm themselves by.

Man is most likely a broomstick.

Sometimes upside down and irrational,

cleaning up, seeping up and raking up

the dirt.

=

Tool used of any Wench

Lately turned into a tool that have no comfort.

FUNCTION

LIFE

Seed

Broomstick

Tree

Baby

Youth

Adult

FATE

Destined to make other things clean

Man reveals abuses, sweeps up the dirt and participate in creating the pollution which he pretend he wanted to stop or eradicate

As human tries to be friend with nature, nature becomes harmed and destroyed because of human’s activity.

=

Man and tree (broomstick) come into the world being beautiful and innocent but as time goes by …

Tree is cut down by AXE

Man is cut by lack of RESTRAINTS

How life grows and end …

Tree is planted andstrives to grow and prosper, but in the end, tree is cut down and used for someone else’s gain and benefit.

When we are still a child, we live with our parents taking up everything from them. As we become youth, we live by finding ourselves. As we reached adulthood, we start keeping and gathering everything we can call as our own. But in the end, we are still going to die.

Someday, human will be the same as a broomstick. We might sweep up and clean up the faults of others or our own faults and mistakes.

The last part of the essay is quite confusing because the speaker in the essay once said that the trees should be treated differently. He says that he was mad to those people who were cutting limb and branches for their own benefit. But in the end, I think the speaker in the essay is now doing the same thing as those people he was mad at was doing.

The whole essay is showing how broomstick andhuman are much likely similar to each other.As a human, we are created and put into thisworld as beautiful creature, innocent andhappy but, someone will come along into ourlives that will break and tear us apart.Someone will take advantage on us, beat usdown and most of all, treat us like a dirt. Butafter everything bad that happened, we justhave to learn how to be strong in who we areand who we’ve become. Like a broomstick, wemight be tried and tested but we can’t letthese people and situations get the best of us.

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A Meditation Upon a Broomstick by Jonathan Swift