Proposal By Johnathan Swift

Desperate times often call for desperate measures, and proposals of desperate measures are often met with swift criticism if they are found to be without rational thought and merit. It is unlikely that anyone in their right mind would consider, for any amount of time, the proposal of rearing children, or properly raising them, as food to help alleviate poverty-stricken Ireland in 1729. Yet, Jonathan Swift’s suggestion was satirical brilliance, and it was a modest proposal for illuminating the cause of Ireland’s woes. The proposal was not actually eating children but placing a mirror for the reader to reflect upon. The target audience of landlords, gentlemen, and other people of stature were more than accustomed to stepping on the poor on

Swift’s plan is an ironic attempt to "find out a fair, cheap, and easy Method"(503), for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth” (503). His “solution” is to sell a child, after he or she reaches one year of age. “Instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding and partly to the clothing of many thousands”(503). From Swift’s perspective using the children, as food is the most efficient and cheap way to make the children a contribution rather than a burden.

He addressed the English by giving them a scenario in the form of a “Proposal” in order to show them their exploiting nature. Swift proposed an idea to help escalate the country’s economic condition and lower its poverty rates. The core of his proposal was the children. He argued that poor parents should no longer bear the burden of children. Instead the children should provide for themselves and their parents by being a commodity. He explained the process similarly to that of raising and selling cattle; mothers should provide their year-old child with nourishment until he or she is fattened, then rich people would buy that child for multiple purposes. Either for feeding or luxurious purposes, those children would eventually provide for the economy. Such proposal intended to camouflage the actual exploitations practiced by the rich English. The reader then was expected to look deeper and untie the knots to discover how in fact he was exploiting the Irish. “The audience is never really let in on the joke - they're supposed to figure it out for themselves that Swift is kidding. Of course, not everybody did.”

To me, Swift challenges the status quo in the story the most by saying how we should eat children. In the story, Swift states that at that time it costed families two shillings a year to raise a child. Jonathan believes that a man would have paid ten shillings for a “good fat child.” Within the same paragraph, he has calculated that one child will amount to approximately four meals that are extremely nutritious. Those four meals would keep the man and one person of company with full stomachs. At one point in the story the author says that an infant's flesh will be in season around march. Throughout the story there are countless examples where the author refers to eating children. In my opinion, it was not okay to eat children then, nor is it acceptable now.

Introduction: In Johnathan Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal,” he states all children in Ireland who are born in a low-income family should be sold as a food source for the affluent families in Ireland. The government believed it was the only way to handle economic problems in the countries of Ireland when on hard times, but society was not amused by the way the people of Ireland are dealing with their financial issues by selling their own children like cattle to make money for themselves. In other countries; parents let their older children, even young ones, work in factories or other business industries to raise money to help support the family. Unlike the parents in Ireland who thinks to sell off their kids (healthy ones) as food to wealthy citizens is their only chance of surviving through poverty.

In Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” Swift proposes to solve the devastating poverty in Ireland by selling children as food for wealthy families. Swift goes on to explain how this would solve all of Ireland’s problems from domestic abuse to poverty. “... a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…” (par. 9.)Swift explains his proposal in depth, in many ways treating these children as nothing more than livestock.

In the "The Modest Proposal," by Jonathan Swift he discusses a solution to poverty in Ireland during the 18th century. Swift’s bizarre, yet well thought out plan for helping families of Ireland, who were in poverty and desperately in the need of money, was fattening children and selling them to the wealthy landowners. He thought that this would be an excellent way for children not to be a burden on their parents but be beneficial. Swift even went on to write a pamphlet telling the parents just how they could fatten their babies and the perfect age and weight for the kids to be before selling them. One of Swift’s friends goes on to give some helpful/ tasty ways that the kids can be cooked before eaten. This does not only financially support Ireland, but it also improves the social, political, and economic problems. Swift didn’t see why anyone in Ireland would disagree with such a brilliant plan that could benefit them in so many ways, except the being eaten of course. Swift even goes on to say that by shrinking the population of kids it would just be less subjects to worry about ruling over and less chaos. Swift’s idea of fattening kids to sell as food to the wealthier landowners of Ireland was one of the most brilliant solutions to solve all of the problems being brought about in Ireland.

“A Modest Proposal” was written by Dr. Jonathan Swift. In this essay, Swift suggest that the poor people of Ireland should sell their children as food to the the rich men and women to help ease their economic troubles. This is not the right thing to do. To sell your own children as

In 1729, with “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift raised the argument that, “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” (44), we should rid ourselves of them by our own consumption. We should bake them, fry them, or serve them in a fricassee or ragout. Swift proposes his “humble” thoughts, for which he expects no objection, on the idea that it would be beneficial to the parents, the country, and even the children if they were to be eaten. He also states that anyone who objects should “ask the parents of these mortals whether they would not at this day think it a

We must keep in mind that Swift is serious throughout the entire proposal but his tone varies and gives the reader a sense of how absurd his proposal is. He considered the fact that the proposal was illogical to most people and wanted to make it stand out profoundly by changing the tone. For instance, Swift conveys that, “Infants' flesh will be in season throughout the year” (Swift 3). He suggests that children will be a product that Ireland will not have an insufficient amount of. His proposal will provide the rich an infinite amount of children to be bought throughout the year and years to come. Swift’s use of foreshadowing gives the reader a sense of how serious the author takes this proposal. He not only gives a sense of how confident he is in his plan, but also gives off the fact that irony is being played a part of this quote. He claims his proposal is the only opportunity Ireland has to evade its problem and also gives an inhuman method in order to reach a solution. Not only does Swift use irony as one of the tones throughout the essay, but also uses a cynical way of introducing his scheme to his audience which are composed of the English and the rich Ireland population. For example, Swift states, “I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it” (Swift 7). Swift expresses that he could name a country,

Johnathan Swift’s book A Modest Proposal is about the poor conditions of the Irish families in 1729. All the families are really poor and have way to many kids, so Swift suggests that these poor Irish families should fatten up their children and sell them to the rich English land owners. He makes the argument that the children should be sold into meat markets as early as 1 year old, as long as they are fed a lot in that first year.

In this statement he is estimating the amount of children in Ireland, and how many would be given up for consumption. He also includes an estimated price for the charge of nursing a poor child to be about two shillings and ten for the child after it has been plumped and sold. Swift follows by describing how many servings it would fulfill as well as how many people it could nourish. By presenting this information he makes the proposal seem possible, well thought out, and easily put into action.

This piece written by Swift may be satirical and a horrendous idea to the common people, it would fix the problems that Dublin is having. By selling off their newborns, which they can’t afford anyway, they can make quite a bit of profit, helping with the poverty problem. Soon, they won’t have to worry about the little thieves running around because all of the children that have been stealing will have grown up and there won’t be any new children coming into the business. Lastly, with the new generation being butchered and devoured, there would be a rapid decrease in the

A Modest Proposal was written in the year 1729 by the famous satirist Jonathan Swift. In his work he outlines the pros of eating unwanted children of Ireland for economical benefits in a time of great poverty. While the reader can obviously discard the idea of eating children, in his proposal, in a roundabout way, Swift speaks to hard pressing issues of the time.

There only remain a hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents who are annually born”(5). By Swift including these statistics shows that he has well thought out this plan, and Swift has done plenty of research before coming to his conclusion. Swift later gives credibility to his friend from London by saying, “a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food”(9). All three rhetorical devices that he used were great ways to persuade the people of Ireland ,that were in poverty, that this was the best option to help them prosper.