Frankenstein And A Modest Proposal Essay

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The year is 1729, a time which was very dark in Ireland. Jonathan Swift writes about how everyone but the poor were suffering in his writing, “A Modest Proposal”. He writes about this dark time and gives crazy yet smart ideas. Mary Shelley’s, “Frankenstein” also has this foreboding tone. Both writings are dark and have the reader wanting to know what will be said next. Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1667. His father, also named Jonathan Swift, died just two months after Swift was born. Swift was sick as a child and was later found out he suffered from Meniere’s Disease. Without a steady income his mother would struggle to give him the best life. She gave him to her husband’s brother, Godwin Swift, a member of the professional …show more content…

The people were suffering and no one would help. Poverty was tremendous at this time. A large scale of Irish immigrated to the colonies with a “I need to get out” mindset. Swift writes in “A Modest Proposal”, “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.”(10) The idea of eating the children born to poverty sounds crazy. Although crazy if one takes the morals out of the situation it almost seems smart. This shows how desperate and awful the conditions were for the people. Swift also talks about this suffering, he says, “But I am not in the least pain upon that matter because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected.” (18) The whole piece is dark and makes the reader realize the misery, so much it is unimaginable. Lyman A. Baker writes an article describing these times. Corruption and greed were the majority of the problem. “But snobbery and corruption were not the most forceful goads to Irish resentment of the English presence and policy.” (Baker, 1)

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