A Modest Proposal analysis
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is a satirical work that gives an extremely sarcastic solution to the problems that Ireland was having with poverty and overpopulation in the 1700s. He gives a series of unrealistic and simply absurd solutions to the problem that include the harsh treatment of children. The complete title of the work is "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public." This can kind of give you an idea on the bizarre insights that the author is going to give. His all around solution is to "fatten up" the undernourished children and selling them into a meat market where they will be sold for food, thus solving the economic and population problems in Ireland. Swift does this through a very sarcastic and brash style that was very new for the time that he wrote it. Swift's main purpose of "A Modest Proposal" was to show the absurdity of the insensible acts that were being carried out by the Irish government. This essay had nothing to do with actually solving the problems in the country. He was mainly attempting to show the people of Ireland that this was the equivalent to what the government wa
"I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight shillings net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child." (Swift) The most intriguing part of "A Modest Proposal" is Swift's use of specific examples and his use of phony statistics. Granted most of these examples are made up, it is interesting to see how he actually incorporated some "facts" in his work to make it sound even more serious. He uses fake statistics to back it up even further. It is extremely out of the ordinary that Swift may have actually calculated all of this. Also note the sarcasm swift uses in this excerpt. The sentence beginning "I believe no gentleman..." is profoundly cynical. No sane person, man or woman, would think about how many a plump or rotund child would feed. To conclude his essay Swift states that he himself will have wreak no benefits from this proposal. "I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country...."(Swift). Swift is trying to let the people know that he is not being egocentric. He is simply proposing a way to fight poverty. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is written in what was a new and differen
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1196
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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