‘If you ignore the historical content of A Modest Proposal you will misunderstand it.’ Discuss.
When A Modest Proposal was published, or to give it’s full name "A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public." England dominated the whole of Ireland. English landlords owned much of Ireland’s property, Charging ridiculous amounts for rent to poor tenants who could barely afford to pay. England imposed extremely high taxes on Ireland and the English laws which restricted Irish trade made it impossible for the country to ever prosper. In general, the English had, at this time, a negative attitude towards Irish people, and Roman Catholics which most Irish people were. This knowledge is important when reading and understanding this piece. Without knowing a little about the political and social state at this time, it may be difficult to pick up on Swift’s use of satire. However the piece itself, even the full title does educate the reader to an extent, talking about different social classes and focusing particularly on the poor in Ireland. This essay purports to be neither decisive nor conclusive, but merely attempts to assess the importance on the historical content of “A Modest Proposal” in order to see if it is a required element when trying to understand the piece.
Over time, England progressively gained full authority over Ireland. In 1541 the parliament in Dublin recognised a Protestant Englishman Henry VIII as the king of Ireland, despite the fact that the majority of the population were Roman Catholics. Many uprisings took place in Ireland over the centuries with little affect. The country of Ire...
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...ws nothing of the history of the two countries would not have as much compassion for the Irish peasants. England had forced their rule upon Ireland, deemed its Roman Catholic people as unintelligent and unworthy. The legislations that were created to keep the Irish down, such as not allowing them to be educated and take a seat in parliament were denying them their rights to what was their country. Legislations such as those that stated they could not marry a protestant and could not bare fire arms even for protection, undermined their religion and took away their humanity. The greed and stubbornness of the English, and the Landlords especially, without doubt led to the poverty, begging, prostitution, starvation, which in some cases really did lead to cannibalism. This despair in Ireland was what inspired Swift to write this shocking, puzzling, yet grasping piece.
Jonathan Swift is the speaker in the story, A Modest Proposal. He is also the author of many other books and stories. In the text of A Modest Proposal, Swift addresses what he believes to be a big issue in the magnificent country of Ireland, Dublin to be exact. Therefore, he proposes a solution to the problem, however, the solution is not what we would call humane, orthodox, reasonable, or even one that we would consider performing today. Swift wrote this piece for anyone that can read and comprehend what the text implies.
Swift defined satire as; 'A sort of glass wherein the holders do generally discover everybody's face but their own, which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it. " Swift presents his "Proposal" as an entirely reasonable suggestion to aid the Irish, he enumerates the many benefits, counters the objections many may have, uses rhetoric reasoning and proves his humanitarianism views. Swift has written in considerable detail over the degree of poverty in Ireland, he draws attention to the causes of it obliquely and proves in great detail that his "Proposal" will work and in which ways it does work. Ireland was a colony of England; it was economically, politically and militarily dependent on ... ... middle of paper ... ...
Imagine reading an anonymous work that promotes cannibalism! Swift eventually had to reveal himself and the purpose of his pamphlet, which was to exaggerate the steps necessary to stop the Irish famine and poverty epidemic. A Modest Proposal is almost a scare tactic. It brings attention to the distances people will go to stop hunger and homelessness. The audience of rich, land-owning men were expected to take the text to heart.
Jonathan Swift says that the people, politicians, and English are all at fault for the terrible state and poverty of Ireland. Swift states that if a poor infant passes the dangerous years of childhood, they would “leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain” or “they would sell themselves to the Barbados,” as indentured servants.
In the time frame that Swifts’ A Modest Proposal was written Ireland was going through political, economic, and religious struggles. In 1729 England had contrived, with the help of Irish venality, to wreck Ireland’s merchant marine, agriculture, and wool industry. Prostitutes in Swift’s paper are having kids like senseless people, but yet they can’t afford to feed them. Jonathan Swift proposes that his people should sell the babies and eat them. He thinks this would help solve the problem of over population. Swift tried to give his people pamphlets on how to fix the problem that was plaguing their country, but they ignored them. Swift says “These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants.”(1) Swift proposes that the mothers sell the babies for 8 shillings; the rich would find the child to be a delicacy and the extra money would go to the landlord. So everyone would benefit from this proposal. He does this as a way of making his people aware of what is going on in their
In Swift’s satirical essay he stated the main issue to be the hunger and starvation of Irish country and their lack of money to support oneself. He said the complication was they themselves don’t have food, to many families in poverty, and that the Englishman took their land and charging high prices for rent. Swift makes this argument because he too is an Irish men and he struggles to see his fellow men parish in the streets. He desires his people to stand up against England and take back what’s theirs. He argues that the Irish...
Through the creation of a pompous, highly educated and sophisticated proposer, in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, the targeted audience, the absentee landlords and parliament of England, and the reader naturally identify with the proposer. The proposer’s rigorous logic, serious and cynical tone deduces the ghastly proposition of cannibalism for economic, political, moral, and nationalistic gain. However, through the targeted audience’s identification with the proposer, Swift is able to propose the ironic humanity of his satirical proposal and thus indict colonial landlordism in Ireland and in Enlightenment ideals. Swift’s proposer’s tone is used for both the ostensible and actual purpose of the proposal; through the adherence to the ideals of the Enlightenment, which would be that of the targeted audience, Swift is able to critique the ideology of logic and rationality as fundamental to morality in the proposal.
This essay by Jonathan Swift is a brutal satire in which he suggests that the poor Irish families should kill their young children and eat them in order to eliminate the growing number of starving citizens. At this time is Ireland, there was extreme poverty and wide gap between the poor and the rich, the tenements and the landlords, respectively. Throughout the essay Swift uses satire and irony as a way to attack the indifference between classes. Swift is not seriously suggesting cannibalism, he is trying to make known the desperate state of the lower class and the need for a social and moral reform in Ireland.
In this case, Jonathan Swift spoke up by making this modest proposal so people could acknowledge that they are focusing on the wrong things. They are giving priorities or doing nothing at all so they leave their country to ashes so when they think the time is right they will have to work the double to raise it again. He spoke the truth obviously in a sarcastic way because he needed to find a way to entertain the person’s mind. And he did, so I think this is one of the best proposals that have been made.
Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is an attempt to bring attention to horrible the condition in which the poor or destitute people in Ireland are living in. His argument that children of these improvised people should be sold to “the persons of quality and fortune” (A Modest Proposal) for consumption, is Swift’s gruesome way of saying you might as well eat the babies, if no one is going to actually try to fix the problems of the poor in Ireland.
The essay, A Modest Proposal, is a proposal to end the economic dilemma in Ireland by selling the poor’s children, at the age of one, for food. The narrator states, “I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their father, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance” (Swift). According to this proposal, by selling the children for food to the wealthy in Ireland many problems will be resolved. The poor mothers will earn money to live on and will not have to raise children, the wealthy will have a new meat source and “an increase in his own popularity among his tenants” (Sparknotes), and the economy will improve because of all of the market action. In the narrator’s eyes, this proposal equals an all around win for the people of Ireland and he cannot see any objection to his plan.
If Jonathan Swift had written a serious piece simply espousing his true beliefs he would not have received as much feedback, due to the fact that there were already informational advertisements at the time and nobody was interested in reading them. The only thing that would get the people 's attention was something that would create a lasting impression, so he wrote a satirical piece with trenchant humor and mochary. “A Modest Proposal” surprised people and got them thinking about the condition of the poor in Ireland and what should be done to solve it. For example Swift states that “those who are thrifty” can use the carcass of the infant for ladies’ gloves or gentlemen’s boots. This itself can help those reading the piece to begin to think about possible solutions to the substantial issues involving the poor in Ireland. He also proposes that children that are fourteen should be consumed as well so the poor don’t have to go hungry and that it would limit the number of breeders, in an attempt to illustrate the extremity of the circumstances. His sarcastic way of joking enlisted fear in the poor and concern in the rich, helping them realise the drastic issue present in the
A “Modest Proposal” is written by a man who had been exiled from England and forced to live among Irish citizens for many years during which he observed major problems in Ireland that needed a solution. The writer of this piece is Jonathan Swift, and in his proposal, “The Modest Proposal,” Swift purpose is to offer a possible solution to the growing problem of the homeless and poverty stricken women and children on the streets of Ireland. Swift adopts a caring tone in order to make his proposal sound reasonable to his audience, trying to convince them that he truly cares about the problems facing Ireland’s poor and that making the children of the poor readily available to the rich for entertainment and as a source of food would solve both the economic and social problems facing Ireland.
The entire proposal stands as a satire in itself; an analogy paralleling the tyrannical attitude of the British toward their Irish counterparts and the use of babies as an economic commodity. In short, Swift suggests that Irish parents are owned by the British, and babies are property of their parents, therefore, England has a right to consume the Irish babies. Swift uses this syllogism to show the British that their despotic reign in Ireland has left the miserable nation in poverty and disarray. Historically, it has been evidenced that England first colonized Ireland for security against, at that time, the Irish barbarians that inhabited the land. Thus, England continues to justify their power over Ireland as “restraining the temptation to consume among England's enemies” (Mahoney). Along with “the assurance of English military power to defend the colony from threat,” the degree of “English political and economic control that the colonists deeply resented,” grew exponentially into a full blown autocracy over Ireland (Mahoney). Swift writes, “Some persons of a desponding nature are in great concern.” This is not simply a concern ...
Ireland, all and parts, at various times, was a colony governed by English rule. From the late middle-ages, it was a kingdom, under the same monarch as England, but a separate kingdom. In law and practice, however, the Irish government was usually subordinate to the English government. The saga continues; Ireland’s dispute in later years was not only pertaining to land ownership, but also religious freedom, as most English are Protestant, and most Irish are Roman Catholic. The conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism played a large part in the Seventeenth century to the present.