A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift

I’m going to start by stating that satire is one of my  favorite literary devices. Jonathon Swift’s piece, A Modest Proposal, is a darkly sarcastic look at a set of problems that has existed since time began, and has never been solved with any appreciable degree of success. His problem, and thus, our response, is the issue of how to prevent and overcome poverty. The setting of his raillery is Ireland in the early 1700s, where the entire isle chafed under the yoke of English rule and tax.

In the midst of this great, beautiful blather about infant cannibalism, Mr. Swift puts the meat of his message: economy, temperance, prudence, fairness, and patriotism. His statements in paragraph 23 offer solids suggestions for any nation to control the poverty level, but I am digressing from the broad analysis.

The majority of the text concerns itself with a revolutionary tactic in dealing with the undesirable effects of a high rate of poverty. He makes the argument in paragraph 5 that it is impossible for destitute parents to care for their children, illegitimate or otherwise, and that they can provide no social good on their own. He intends to shock the politicians and policy makers of the day into action with the suggestion that these poor infants be sold as a gustatory delicacy to the rich. His voluminous argument is extremely logical, though morally and ethically bankrupt. The program he describes, were it feasible to enact and enforce, and if it were permitted by the standards of any christian society, would have taken a long, cruel step towards the eradication of the suffering of the young Irish poor.

Image from www.buzfed.com

Swift appeals strongly to the emotional mind with his opening argument, drawing the disinterested reader in with bombastic statements of the suffering of these children, then he begins to segue into the logical, quoting an unknown merchant (paragraph 7) and then his mysterious American friend, “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...” (paragraph 8). With this preposterous statement(to the civilized and straight laced English), the enormous weight of sarcasm comes to bear upon the reader.