Swift made many important observations throughout his piece, “A Modest Proposal”, however the most important was the extreme conditions in which the many homeless citizens lived. Swift wrote a paper describing the benefits to Ireland if they were to sell their children as a food source to the wealthier. His piece was written in 1729 during a time where Ireland was struggling vastly with poverty. Swift never mentions whether he faced homelessness in his life or not, but he speaks of it as if he knows it well. An example of his knowledge about such things is when he says, “Secondly, The poorer tenant will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be mad liable to distress and help to pay their landlord’s rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown.” (Page 5) Even though Swift is full of irony the fact that he even mentions the selling of children being worth a place to live shows how much he truly understands how hard homelessness is. “We always look at the 'Fortune 500,' and we say, men in power, but we don't look at the glass cellar as opposed to the glass ceiling and say, men also are the homeless, men are also the ones that are the garbage collectors. Men are also the ones dying in construction sites that aren't properly supervised for safety hazards.” (Warren Farrell) When Farrell said this in modern …show more content…
The percentage of homelessness today is about 4% which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but in swifts’s time using his estimated numbers the percentage was 8%. Does 8 seem like a big number to you? No, it’s not at all, yet it was so desperate a situation that a man felt compelled to write an argumentative essay as repulsing as eating children just to prove a point. We’re not far behind their situation and that should cause people to open their eyes to all those homeless who we’ve never
In the 1720s, there was widespread poverty and hunger in the country of Ireland that was completely under the English control. Jonathan Swift, a native of Ireland, was enraged about the treatment of the Irish People. Swift’s was then influenced to write his Modest Proposal to stun his readers into creating a reasonable solution to Ireland’s dilemma. Swift use different symbols to figuratively express the issues that the county is facing. Swift’s tone and style displayed in the Modest Proposal evokes unpopular reactions from his readers thus, causing his point to be noticed.
In 1792, Jonathan Swift wrote, ‘A Modest Proposal.’ During this time, the poor were poverty-stricken irish families, and the rich were comfortable English landowners. Imagine large penniless families, who have a multitude of children to feed, without a multitude of money. Swift proposed a solution. He suggested that the Irish were too fatten up their extra mouths that needed filling, and sell them as slaves, or food, to the English. He makes such an outlandish proposition, because of the overpopulation and unemployment problem, in Ireland. Swift goes on to explain how this arrangement would boost Ireland’s economic, social, and political problems.
Throughout the essay, Swift leaves conspicuous hints of his true intention as he states “I calculate my remedy for this one individual Kingdom of Ireland … let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture ... Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers …” Here, he gives a long list of other ways to make things better in Ireland, while calling the Irish people to action to solve their own problems. He also bitterly mocks those he feels are responsible for the current plight, stating “I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation,” after mentioning his plan’s effects on the English, and claiming that landlords should enjoy the new delicacy since “as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.” Swift gives a slew of simple solutions that even a commoner could help start. Things like supporting the Irish economy by only buying domestic goods, and pressing the shop-keepers to have the integrity that they so often lack in this time period. In writing all these solutions, he almost mocks the public for not taking action, in the hopes that they
Throughout the essay, Swift made allusions to the horrendous state of the English government by painting the affluent members of society out to be people that do nothing to better the general public; he degraded them to the point of being nothing more than barbarians who care so little for the general populace that they would be willing to cannibalize them, which was quite the
“It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. 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.” (Swift) This was very ironic due to the fact swift described in detail the rags on the starving innocent children 's backs to being a great way to gain nutrients by eating them. This solution was very unpredictable and nobody saw it
Swift begins his argument by stating his view on the situation and displaying his annoyance. He states, "It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country when they see the streets, roads, and cabin doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms" (Swift 1). He uses melancholic imagery for the readers to sympathize with the suffering children and to understand their situation. Similarly, Swift displays his disgust for the wealthy by stating that "There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children… which would move tears in the most savage and inhumane beast" (1). He talks about abortion and shows how ghastly and disheartening the practice is. Clearly, Swift makes use of pathos to slowly gain the reader’s confidence in preparation for his appalling proposal. He knows that many will be emotionally affected by his proposal because no one would want their own c...
Jonathan Swift, the writer of the satirical essay A Modest Proposal, grew up and lived in Ireland during times of famine and economic struggles (Conditions). Growing up with a single mother and no father, Swift knew what hard times and struggles were like (Jonathan Swift: Biography). His essay proposes an easy solution to the economic problems going on in Ireland for both the wealthy ruling classes and the poorer classes, although his intentions and the meaning behind his words are not what would be originally thought when initially reading the essay. Through his word choices and the description of specific events of his time, Swift uses satire to grab his audience’s attention and get his own personal ideas and opinions out about all the problems going on in Ireland. In Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal, he proposes the poor people of Ireland sell their children as food for the wealthy to ease their economic troubles since they can’t sufficiently take care of them anyway.
I will be analyzing the short essay “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift in this literary analysis. This essay demonstrated tactics or ideas of how to convert the poor kids of ireland into useful members of the community. Some of the ideas in this story are rather odd, but will make the reader realize that Swift means well for the children of Ireland and only wants them to be true contributors to the commonwealth of Ireland.
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.
In Jonathan Swift’s essay, “A Modest Proposal”, Swift proposes that the poor should eat their own starving children during a great a famine in Ireland. What would draw Swift into writing to such lengths? When times get hard in Ireland, Swift states that the children would make great meals. The key factor to Swift’s essay that the reader must see that Swift is not literally ordering the poor to cannibalize. Swift acknowledges the fact of the scarcity of food and empathizes with the struggling and famished souls of Ireland through the strange essay. Being of high society Britain, which at the time mothered Ireland, Swift utilizes his work to satirically place much of the blame on England itself. Through his brilliant stating of the fact that the children cost money as well as aid in the drought of food and necessities the reader can get an idea of the suffering on going in Ireland; this brings the reader to see that instead of keeping the children their parents should either eat them or sell them on an open market. By wasting the scarce food in Ireland, the people are killing themselves; thus the children can be consumed saving food and at the same time making food. It is interesting to see how well Swift conveys his view towards the poor in this odd manor. Swift sees how the poor are treated by the affluent who may think that the impoverished are the reason for Ireland’s food problems. In fact, the entire essay is nothing more than sarcastic piece that deeply imbeds the blame upon the rich who he feels might have just as much or even more blame on Ireland’s food problems than the poor ever have. Swift intelligently uses his common sense logic in a strange way to convey his feelings about this predicament. Swift goes to great lengths to intelligently show these feelings. The ways at which Swift camouflages his ideas and thoughts throughout this essay brought many readers at the time to think that he actually wanted Ireland to revert to eating their children. His employment of such literary elements of irony, mix cynicism, and pure contextual reaction from the reader help to map the entire essay.
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that described a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation. Swift hoped to reach not only the people of Ireland who he was calling to action, but the British, who were oppressing the poor. He writes with contempt for those who are oppressing the Irish and also dissatisfaction with the people in Ireland themselves to be oppressed.
The sarcastic paradox in this statement is whether it is a melancholy object for him, having to see homeless people every day, or for the beggars lifestyle? Upon first reading this one may be led to believe that Swift is a compassionate writer attempting to feel the pain of the beggars. But as the story continues, a reader can look back and note that he is using a sarcastic tone and the only sad sight that he sees is the fact that people of his status have to deal with commoners.
The issue is that there is a growing number of poor and starving women and children living on the streets of Ireland that are a burden to the public and the country. The context is that these homeless and starving women and children are left to fend for themselves on the streets. Jonathan Swift is making the argument from the point of a concerned citizen who has spent years among the poor in Ireland studying the situation and trying to come up with a solution. Johnathan Swift used the example that those who visit Ireland and see the streets crowded with women and children that are beggars conclude that Ireland is a very poor, overpopulated country full of beggars and that they look down upon their country that is in such poor shape. His bias is that as a citizen living in Ireland, he does not want to be looked down upon by other countries. His targeted audience seems to be the citizens of the country and those in higher up positions who ...
Jonathan Swift, a respected writer, wrote and publicized A Modest Proposal in 1729. His article’s purpose was proposing a solution for the poor people being a burden in Ireland, also known as poverty and starvation. Swift adopts an opinionated tone on the matter in order to successfully get his point across to readers. He wants readers to agree with his proposal, the intended audience being the Irish public.
In the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ states that there will always be poor, pathetic, struggling masses and nothing we can do will ever completely eliminate this element. Swift also acknowledges the homeless people, but in a different vein than Christ. In "A Modest Proposal," the narrator expresses pity for the poor, but at the same time he strives to maintain his social dominance over them. According to Swift, the English-Irish common people of the time exist in a disgusting state, a fact that he attempts to make the English Parliament aware of. The poor that Swift refers to are Catholics, peasants, and every homeless man, woman, and child in the entire kingdom. Swift is worried that the Parliament is ignorant of the fact that there is a great socioeconomic distance between the increasing number of peasants and the aristocracy, and that this distance has powerful repercussions. Swift conveys his message in essay-form with satire, humor, and shock value as his weapons.