1. The Lottery

According to Liu Hongli#8217;s essay, the themes of this novel can be divided into three parts(134-135). Firstly, the villagers followed the tradition very blindly. People in the village didn#8217;t have their independent thinking, and they just follow what their ancestors had done and what the leaders let them do. Secondly, women had very low social status, whose social status were lower than men at that time. Thirdly, the loss of human nature. Tessie was stoned to death by her friends, lover, and children very cruelly and ruthlessly. At that moment, people#8217;s human nature was fully lost, Liu, Hu, Pan all believe that the theme of the short story is the loss of human nature(134-135,23-26,120-121)

The story also abounds in symbols. Almost every setting, character, and object has their symbolic meaning. According to Liu Hongli#8217;s and Sheng Xiuli#8217;s essays(134-135,47-49), first are the characters#8217; names. For example, Old man Warner symbolizes the strong believer of tradition who is always warning against the new idea of reforming stoutly. Next are the objects. One of them is the black box, which symbolize majesty, mystery and inalterability. And that it also symbolizes the crime and death. Lastly are the numbers. One of them is seventy-seven. It#8217;s a number that means infinity in ancient people#8217;s mind. So the number 77 symbolizes that the old tradition lottery will be inherited from generation to generation forever.

Pan held the idea that ”The Lottery” was a tragedy caused by human being's slavish devotion. He pointed out three aspects, first is the situational irony which means things don#8217;t happen as it should be. This kind of writing skill really gives the reader a big psychological strike. Next is the use of symbolism, which gives settings and objects special meanings. Last is the depiction of the characters. Through detailed description of a specific character, the fiction can be more memorable and the writer can express the theme better(120-121).

Liu and Pan#8217;s view on human nature is similar. They think that human beings lose their human nature because they live in an age of post war or slavish devotion. As a result, they lose their faith, ideality, and hope. However, Hu thinks that human nature is born evil, that is the darkness of human nature doesn#8217;t owe to acquired disposition. With the growth of age, people don#8217;t improve the human nature at all.

2. A Modest Proposal

Zhu and Xuan analyses the structure of A Modest Proposal He says that this article followed the common mode of argumentative writing, that is raising the problem, analyze the problem and suggest some viable solutions. The author disclosed the absurdity behind the reason. He said that no matter how reasonable the writer#8217;s logic illation is, because the major premise is wrong, so the conclusion is absurd and the suggestion is not viable. And through this kind of absurd proposal, this article is full of irony(81-83).

In terms of writing style of A Modest Proposal, Ma and Luo pointed out that the article used two satiric skills that is disguise and antiphrasis. In the following paragraphs, the writer told us how Jonathan Swift made the article so special and ironic. From the aspect of syntactic formation, compared with the other works of Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal#8217; s sentences is very prolix in order to achieve special artistic effects. As to the words used in A Modest Proposal, in most people#8217;s eyes, Swift#8217;s language style is very modern, who seldom uses outdated words and idioms. However, in A Modest Proposal, Swift imitates the tongue of the economists and politicians in order to add to the authority of his speaking. From the angle of rhetorical devices, Swift uses the skill of metaphor, and then implies that the governor takes the poor people as animals in order to achieve ironic effect(41-45).

Zhang mainly talked about A Modest Proposal from three aspects. Firstly, the vocabulary in the article is simple, easy and descriptive, so that everybody can understand it including the common Irish people. Secondly, its sentences are very complicated. A series of compound long sentences which contain complex information and thoughts are good for the writer to state his opinions and facts step by step. Thirdly, the essay makes use of logical and referential links between sentences and paragraphs, which help the writer to explain and express his feelings and opinions step by step and in different angles(262-263).

Ma，Luo and Zhang all analyzed the article from the aspect of the structure of the sentence，The diction used in the work. Through those analyses, they told us that how the writer achieve the effect of irony.