Works of Robinson (Essay Sample)

Test 1 Question 1: Chapter 8 of The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe According to the excerpt, Robison Crusoe describes his conditions after landing on an isolated island where life was not easy. To emphasize the point, Crusoe compares his life on the island to that of a prisoner. Crusoe believes he is imprisoned because there is no way out of the island, and as prisoners, they are subjected to strict security. While narrating the situation, Crusoe's voice shows signs of hopelessness and a tragic tone that informs his audiences and readers that he is trapped on the island (De Foe, 2019). His use of words such as "my very heart would die within me" and "the anguish of my soul" (De Foe, 2019) show how terrified Crusoe was living on the island. He feared that he would never find his way out of the island. Furthermore, readers can decipher Crusoe's hopeless and tragic tone, indicating that he has been trapped on the island for life. Because he genuinely believes he is trapped on the island for good, Crusoe's comparison of his life on the island to prison creates a tragic tone and a sense of hopelessness. Even though Crusoe compares his plight on the island to that of the prisoners, prisoners have set release dates. However, Crusoe appears trapped on the island, which represents his sufferings, with no idea how to improve his life. Question 2: Jonathan Swift's Essay "A Modest Proposal" Jonathan Swift's essay A Modest Proposal presents the author's perspective on Ireland's poverty problem. Swift uses satire and sarcasm to demonstrate how the rich in the community discriminate against the poor and disadvantaged. According to Swift (2021), the impoverished population consists of the poor, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly. Swift attempts to mock wealthy people's claims that they are empathetic and sorry for getting involved in issues beneath them. It is natural for all community members to be concerned about one another's well-being. Swift's choice of words and phrases, such as "they are every day dying, and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected," convey sarcasm, which he coined to communicate how the rich view the poor. Swift speaks bluntly about poor people's deaths, implying that the poor have no rights and are only a subject of death, and the rich should not waste time on them. Swift, in his essay, intended to create awareness of the difficulties that the poor, sick, disabled, and elder face and the interventions they need to cope with their situations. Moreover, Swift, through his essay, meant to mock how the rich in the community treat and view the disadvantaged. As is always the case, the poor, through the lens of rich people, are mistaken as beggars. Question 3: Jonathan Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal" In his modest proposal, Jonathan Swift educates on Ireland's causes of human suffering. Swift, in his view, blames the poverty and suffering Ireland is experiencing caused by the government and its leaders. Moreover, Swift believed that the wealthy class in the land was also part of the nation's problems. The points the author makes in his proposal are the hardships and issues faced by the poor and average people in Ireland. Swift, in his proposal, employs literal devices such as satire to explain the rich's perspective on the poor and disadvantaged in the community. His choices of words like "ragouts" and "fricassee" creates imagery (Swift, 2021). From how he tells his proposal, Swift effectively uses the literary devices of imagery and satire to criticize wealthy people successfully. Sometimes, Swift's writings sound realistic to his audiences, but he knows how to bounce it back by creating another point to make them understand. Test 2 Question 1: Romeo and Juliet Film For this question, the movie I choose to compare the original and its version is Romeo and Juliet. I have watched both original remake versions of the movie with Leonardo de Caprio. Several differences between the two films tend to convey messages not covered in both versions. For instance, the original movie's actors are in the old version of traditional attires (Nand, 2022). This implies that the original movie was played a long time ago, before civilization. On the other hand, in the version by Leonardo de Caprio, things seem to be different. First, the movie is acted on a gang basis instead of the family, which was the case in the original. Second, the type of attire worn in the remake version communicates the modern civilized world (Nand, 2022). Therefore, the second version of Romeo and Juliet adds much more information to the original one because it relates to modern people. Question 2: Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” The excerpt by Jonathan Swift given for this question presents how hard citizens hustle to raise a living, but the government or local authorities overburden them with taxes. This is even realized in the modern world, where citizens who toil hard or do business are expected to pay taxes to the government. Nevertheless, from Swift's narration in Ireland, thing seems different because it can be noticed from his choice of words that the government is taking more than it should. Going through the excerpt, I found the last pa...