modest proposal
"A Modest Proposal": "For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public." The essay satirically promotes the consumption of one-year-old children to eliminate the growing number of poor citizens in Ireland. Swift uses savage irony to point out the inhumane condition of the colonized Irish. Near the end, his "Projector" rejects several rational ways to help the poor, strategies Swift, himself, had previously proposed in pamphlets, including the series known as "The Drapier's Letters." Part of the satire's effect derives from the thoroughness with which it works out its basic metaphor equating the English devouring of innocent babies and wealthy absentee landowners devouring the Irish economy. This has the effect of literalizing the metaphor as the butchery, sale, and consumption of the "product" are worked out. This also was a satirical strategy we saw in Jonson's Volpone (feigned madness becomes a real madness, leading to incarceration). This proposal could be compared with More's Utopia because they both use satire to discuss the welfare of society. More used a more appealing alternative to create his utopia, a place wher
However, Swift's attacks on Catholics were likely done to appeal to his English audience and did not reflect personal beliefs, for he once wrote, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. While A Modest Proposal bemoans the bleak situation of an Ireland almost totally subject to England's exploitation, it also expresses Swift's utter disgust at the Irish people's seeming inability to mobilize on their own behalf. Distancing the subject from England helps readers play More's game since it reduces their drive to test the utopian constructs against "reality. Swift also addresses problems that would arise if his proposal was enacted. Swift makes his point negatively, stringing together an appalling set of morally untenable positions in order to cast blame and aspersions far and wide. " Across the country poor children, predominantly Catholics, are living in squalor because their families are too poor to keep them fed and clothed. Swift describes the destitution that characterized the life of Ireland's poor in the 18th century then renders a brazenly inhumane solution to their problems. As miserable as the picture Swift painted of Irish life was, the brushstrokes of history were even harsher. e everyone was equal and where sharing everything solved class divisions. Yet we need only look to poor children huddled on the streets of Brazil, or hear accounts of people who have resorted to using human flesh as sustenance to endure the North Korean famine, to realize that the misery of the world's poor has yet to be tempered by the progress of a modern age. The body of the essay is devoted to an unflinchingly positive portrayal of this proposal and its benefits. For the people of Ireland, "A Modest Proposal" built upon Swift's earlier Drapier's Letters and made Swift a national hero (Bookshelf). Using the tone of high-minded satire to the very end, Swift concludes with a short paragraph recusing himself from personal gain were his proposal to be enacted. " The tract is an ironically conceived attempt to "find out a fair, cheap, and easy Method" for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth. The author offers statistical support for his assertions and gives specific data about the number of children to be sold, their weight and price, and the projected consumption patterns.
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Acceptance Essays
