`A Modest Proposal` by Jonathan Swift

A Not-So-Modest Proposal : Examining Swift 's Underlying Message in A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift 's A Modest Proposal is really anything but . His ultimate solution to the pervading problem of poverty and starvation in Ireland is horrific : to raise infant children to the age of one year and at that point sell them off to the highest bidder to be used as food and clothing . And yet , as absolutely morally repugnant as this idea may be , Swift introduces and extrapolates on it in such a way that makes it seem rather common-place

, almost as if to say , How on earth did no one think of this before

The essay is , of course , loaded with sarcasm and irony , from the title on down . There is little that could be more ghastly than the thought of selling and eating babies , yet Swift is nonchalant about that point . He begins his essay by pointing out the great plague of poverty that had overtaken Ireland at that time , painting a vivid portrait of women standing on street corners with their three , four , or six children all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms ' He begins to introduce his terrible idea by playing a numbers game , adding up how many new mouths to feed there are every single year , further burdening already over-burdened parents , causing a further strain on the already over-strained economy , and requiring more begging for sustenance from the already over-begged public . As one reads his of this ever-perpetuated vicious cycle of hunger and poverty , one can only agree with Swift : there really doesn 't seem to be a way out of it

Oh , but Swift knows a way , and is eager to share it . He introduces the enormity of his proposal ' rather quietly , building and building his picture of a suffering people with no food and no work and no means adding the ever-increasing number of children into the mix when there is already no food and no work and no means . He draws the reader into this plight , so the reader becomes desperate himself to discover a way to resolve it . Until finally , he comes out with it : 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 ' And he does it so matter-of-factly that the reader doesn 't quite know what to make of it . Swift 's attitude towards the matter is basically that a person would have to be a fool not to agree with him , and states , I can think of no one objection that will probably be raised against this proposal ' completely (and very intentionally ) blind to the moral reprehensibility of his suggestion In his explanation and in his defense of the proposal , he uses very cold , cruel logic in to outline the many number of ways this would be an advantage to all parties involved : the parents who need...