A Modest Proposal Compare And Contrast

When you think of two great writers, do William Blake and Jonathan Swift come to mind? Both created literary works, allowing them to present their point of view to their readers. We can understand what Swift intends in his works, whereas Blake, we cannot fully understand his point of view. Whereas Blake’s “Holy Thursday” and Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’ are different as “Holy Thursday” is about a ceremony for the charity-school children and the poverty in England, while ‘A Modest Proposal’ proposes a solution to the poverty in Ireland, they are also similar as they both are concerned about the human conditions of their times. First, “Holy Thursday” depicts a particular ceremony in England. As always, Blake favors the innocent children as he

The parents spend all their time trying to feed their large families. Swift suggests that the poor Irish families should fatten up their undernourished children and sell them as food to the wealthy English landowners. In the beginning of ‘A Modest Proposal’, the problem is noticed by how crowded the streets are with women beggars that are followed by many children. The proposer has put a lot of thought into this important subject trying to find a fair, cheap, and easy solution to this poverty problem. He did take other proposals into consideration but found that those solutions were insufficient. He proposed that Irish children should be sold to the English landowners by age one, giving poor families some much needed income. He hopes his solution will not only help starvation, but overpopulation and unemployment in Ireland. Then, he continues to offer specific data for his proposal, which suggests the number of children to be sold, their weight and price, and projected eating patterns of their consumers. ‘A Modest Proposal’ ends with his argument stating that the practice of selling and eating children will have positive outcomes for the Irish families such as husbands having more respect for their wives and the parents valuing their children more. He believes this proposal will solve Ireland’s social, political, and economic problems. Once he has listed all the benefits of this solution, the proposer lists one possible objection to his proposal. Howard Bromberg states, “It is true, he says, that this proposal would greatly reduce the population of Ireland, but this very reduction of population would be beneficial, as there is no hope of more humane measures being taken to alleviate Irish misery, such as taxing absentee landlords, replacing profligacy with industry, or cultivating a spirit of mercy from landlords toward their tenants.” The proposer hopes to