In his renowned pamphlet, “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift brings attention to the poor conditions in Ireland. Being a native of Ireland, Swift remained loyal to his country. Upon noticing the terrible conditions in Ireland, he took it upon himself to address the issues at hand. Among these issues, involves the sickly and insufficient children in his homeland. Incorporating statistics to support his claim, Swift attempts to persuade his readers to support his outrageous plan to solve a dire situation. As a result his “logical” and preposterous plan created mixed reactions in both the past and the present.…
Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’ talks about how children of poor people are a burden to their parents and how the parents should fatten up their children and then feed them to Ireland’s rich land-owners. But in the last sentence of ‘A Modest Proposal’, “I have no children, by which I can propose a single penny; the youngest being nine and my wife past child-bearing” is one example of the verbal irony in the whole pamphlet.…
Swift uses a lot of statistics and calculations to support his proposal. For example on page 915, “I calculate there may be about 200,000 couple…I subtract 30,000 couple….annually born.” There are also calculations on pages 916 and 918, showing that he has planned all of the details of his proposal out, which helps make A Modest Proposal, a strong, augmentative essay. Swift also explains all the benefits of his proposal, as shown on pages 917 and 918, “For first, as I have already observed….Sixthly….fear of a miscarriage.” As a result of Swift explaining his proposal and benefits detail by detail, the essay becomes stronger and the proposal starts to look appealing.…
Jonathan Swift's 1729 satirical pamphlet, “A Modest Proposal from Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland, from Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” under the pseudonym of Dr. Swift, has been regarded as an important historical text, exploiting the conditions of Ireland in the 18th century. In “A Modest Proposal”, Swift proposes to the Irish public that to lessen the burden of poverty in Ireland they must sell their children as food and sustenance to feed the country’s wealthy. As it is a satire, Swift's approach and proposal suggests the dire economic conditions of Ireland during the 18th century, and provides a context for Ireland’s culture during this time and a framework for how people lived in all sectors of the economic classes.…
“A Modest Proposal” is a strongly written satire by Jonathon Swift. In the essay, Swift applies nearly all of the elements of satire. Some of the most obvious elements are his use of creating a persona and his exaggeration. Beginning by analyzing the title, “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”, it is a reasonable topic for the essay. However it is not at all modest. Swift absurdly creates suggestions to make the poor children beneficial. His primary goal in this essay is to shame the English, bring up the issues of poverty and motivate the Irish.…
Swift's proposed a remedy for solving the economic and social problems in Ireland. His solution to overpopulation, unemployment, and the starving families is so specific that it becomes a parody. He"reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh twelve pounds, and in a solar year if tolerably nursed increaseth to twenty-eight pounds." Through his detailed solution and forumulas, his use of parodies are clearly shown. From each shilling to his ideas a children recipes, parody is used to show how that he means exactly the opposite idea of eating children to raise up the economy. He actually means to help the nation by improving the economic by starting out to help the poor. Through his servere mockery towards the upper class, his indiviual anguis at the failure of all this paper jounalism to achieve any actual progress is…
In his satirical essay "A Modest Proposal," Johnathan Swift examines treatment of the poor in Ireland during the eighteenth century: “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London; that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food; whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled, and I make no doubt, that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or ragout.” (Swift 763) In his essay, Swift describes a repulsive suggestion for dealing with the children of the poor in Ireland. Swift describes in detail how poor children should be raised and sold to the wealthy at age one. He details how the children should be and how they should be prepared for the wealthy to consume. Swift's abhorrent proposal for the poor children not only points out the awful treatment of the poor in Ireland during the eighteenth century, but also Ireland's inability to devise a more desirable plan for the poor. His use of statistics and graphical depiction of the poor children's lives adds to the credibility of his essay.…
An Anglican priest known for his political pamphlets, Jonathan Swift, in his essay, “A Modest Proposal”, suggests that the infants of poor mothers should be sold as food on the market. Swift’s proposal is to call attention to the horrid living conditions in Ireland to convince the English to stop exploiting the Irish. He accomplishes this by encouraging the audience to believe he’s creditable, using statistics and the advantages of his proposal to appear logical, appealing to the emotions of the reader.…
Although Ireland was an autonomous kingdom during the eighteenth century, the English Parliament still exerted its power from afar. The weak social relations made it so that England overlooked the economical instability in Ireland. The anger that lies behind A Modest Proposal holds both England and Ireland dually responsible for the turmoil. This is illustrated first by dehumanizing the Irish people. The proposer compares them to livestock, referring to the women as “breeders” (Swift 342), and proposes, “a young healthy child” will serve as “a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled” (Swift 342). By doing this, Swift criticizes both the English government for merely viewing the people of Ireland as insignificant, and also attacks the Irish for allowing themselves…
In “A Modest Proposal”, the theme of the short story is all but modest. The proposal is that the people of Ireland should start eating babies in order to dilute the population and to provide money (to, for example, the renters) for the poor who cannot afford food. John Swift uses this ironic satire in order to catch the reader's attention. It is his way of saying ‘here is a ridiculous idea, now think of an actual solution’. The solution that Swift proposes is one that would work but is deemed immoral.…
The late 1600s and early 1700s in particular were a difficult time for Ireland. Catholics made up most of the Irish poor who constituted 80 percent of the population and owned less than one-third of the land. As the Protestant English landowners took over in the 1700s, the Irish Catholics dove deeper into lives of famine and poverty. In “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift presents several claims and supporting evidence that the consuming of the Irish nation’s growing number of children will solve the poverty epidemic as well as decrease religious enemies.…
Johnathan Swift writes this satirical proposal to "prevent the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or the country" and to make them "beneficial to the public".…
The setting is in the year 1729, Ireland. (Swift, 1729) The poor lined the streets, mostly mothers and their children, begging for food or money for food and necessities. (Swift, 1729) His description of their living conditions reminded me of a painting by William Hogarth, Gin Lane, 1751. (Sayre, 2011) Although Swift did not insinuate these people caused their own turmoil from the abuse of alcohol but instead,…
Jonathon Swift wrote and published “A Modest Proposal” anonymously in 1729. During this time Swift’s country of Ireland was being controlled by England. Under England’s control Ireland’s conditions were very poor during the 1720’s. Ireland was overpopulated, poor, and heavily dependent on England during this time. “A Modest Proposal” is an argumentative essay that uses both satire and irony to entertain the reader.…
To expound on A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift begins with his use of sarcasm in the first sentence. “It is melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the road and cabin doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms” (Swift 431). Swift asserts it is a “great town” but then he continues on to imply it is not by saying “the road and cabin doors crowded with beggars of the female sex” (Swift 431). The 1720s were a time of general economic difficulty in Ireland, marked by three periods of particular crisis. The first, initiated by the Mississippi crash and South Sea Bubble in 1720, gave birth to proposals for a national bank, initially accepted –though ultimately rejected –by the Irish parliament.…