A Modest Proposal Reflection

Surface Message: Jonathan Swift is telling the reader of the poverties of the Irish subjects in England. He explains how one cannot walk through these towns with poor Irish subjects without being hoarded by begging women, children, and men. He says that these begging children are unarguably the Kingdoms mess and the only way to get rid of this mess was by Jonathan Swift's bold new plan. He proposes that these kids are on the streets and begging for necessities, so what good do they really play in the society other than bringing the economy down? So Swift's idea involves selling babies (to eat) to rich landlords in America; either the parents of these children have the benefit of selling the carcase and making money off of it, or eating the child themselves so they are no longer suffering hunger. Swift goes on about how much that these children will make, and at what age that these children get too old to eat, and so forth.

Subliminal Message: Jonathan Swift seems to take side with the Irish subjects through the satire and opposes the British ways. He explains how most of Irish' poverty is much of their own fault and the British responsibility but England doesn't seems to do much for them indicating that the Kingdom as a whole doesn't really care about the Irish population, so what better to do with the children then to sell and eat them? Only this proposal be the one to end hunger and poverty and societal downfall. In this essay he brings about how religion, greed, power, politics, morals, and society and class all tie into the economic downfall. Swift sees catholics as the ultimate enemy; poor Irish Catholics make up most of the “disease” and the main proposal is to get rid of Catholics because they are initially bringing the societal down. He brings about greed by addressing the price of each plump infant, knowing that greedy Irish subjects would need to know the price first before they ever thought about selling their children, but once it came to a good