Hypocrisy In A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift's essay A Modest Proposal is a blunt and brilliant essay that dealt with the poverty and overpopulation problems in Ireland in the 1700s. He gave the ridiculous idea of fattening up the impoverished people's children and selling them for food or have the parents eat their own children in order to try to rid Ireland of its economic troubles. Swift used such shocking examples in order to show England and Ireland the giant difference between the rich and the poor. The poor kept getting poorer while the rich kept getting richer. Swift's purpose of his essay was to show the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of the government and upper class by using literary devices. In his essay, Swift set the stage by putting a strong focus on the

Swift says things like, "It is melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and the cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for all palms" (Swift 1). The irony of this is that he is writing this because he presents the persona that he deeply cares for the poor and the wealthy are being selfish and the poor are over looked; however, Swift is dehumanizing them by showing he does not care by saying it is perfectly alright for them to sell their children to the wealthy to be eaten. As has been clearly shown, Swift brings to light the the struggles of the society he lives in such as poverty, greed, and selfishness. It was an exceptionally touchy subject at the time that most people shied away from for fear of the governments retaliation. He illustrated how horrible Ireland's condition was by using satire, rhetoric, and various other literary devices to make his point known. He met his goal of showing Ireland's citizens and the government how much the poverty stricken lower class needed support to survive rather than being at the feet of the