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JONATHAN SWIFT
“A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE INIRELAND FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS OR COUNTRY AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC”
1. Read footnote 1 at the bottom of page 2473 and summarize whatthe textbook editor says about the following: irony, rigorous logic, parody, the proposer, the trite metaphor, Swift’s pity, and Swift’s anger.
Irony is used from the “deceptive adjective modest in the title to the very last sentence.
“A rigorous logic deduces ghastly arguments from a premiseso quietly assumed that readers assent before they are aware of what that assent implies.”
“Parody . . . allows him to glance sardonically at the bythen familiar figure of the benevolent humanitarian . . . concerned to correct a social evil by means of a theoretically conceived plan.”
“The proposer, as naive as he is apparently logical and kindly, ignores and therefore emphasizes for the reader the enormity of his plan.”
The essay is based on “a rather trite metaphor: ‘The English are devouring the Irish.’”
The essay shows Swift’s “pity for the oppressed, ignorant, populous, and hungry Catholic peasants of Ireland.”
It also shows “his anger at the rapacious English absentee landlords, who were bleeding the country white with the silent approbation of Parliament, ministers, and the crown.”
2. What problems in Ireland does the writer say he is addressing? (2472-74)
The problem of overpopulation, starvation, and begging.
3. What is the purpose of the calculations and figures? (last paragraph of page 2474)
His numbers are meant to impress the reader by showing thathe is skilled in the new science of statistics. Actually his numbers show that 6/7 of the Irish population cannot feed and take care of their children (only 30,000 couples out 200,000 couples can maintain their own children). The numbers also showthat one out of every three newborns die by miscarriage while being delivered or by disease within their first year.
4. What is the solution to the problem? (3rd and 4th paragraphs, page 2475)
“I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection. I have been assured . . . that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.”
5. What benefits does the writer say his proposal will bring? (2475-78)
It will provide food for many thousands, prevent abortion and infanticide, provide a self-sustaining and self-renewing economy, provide leather goods, bring trade to taverns and slaughter-houses, and lessen the number of Catholics in Ireland.
6. What is the purpose of the fourth paragraph on page 2478, beginning “I can think of no other objection”?
This paragraph contains practical, feasible, and humanesolutions to the problems stated in paragraphs 1 and 2. Only because these more desirable solutions have been ignored by the English has Swift in desperation yielded up his outrageous proposal.
7. In paragraph 2, page 2479, who does the narrator say would most approve of his project?
The beggars of Ireland themselves. The writer states that those who object to his proposal should “first ask the parents of these mortals whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old in the mannerI prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual sense of misfortunes as they have since gone through . . . .”
8. What proof does the writer offer in the last paragraph of the essay (page 2479) that he is acting not out of private gain, but out of public good?
He says that he will not benefit personally from the proposal since “I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past childbearing.”
9. What word in the title of the essay is ironic? The title gains its irony from complete inversion of the meaning of “modest” as applied to a most immodest, indeed notorious, proposal.
10. The writer presents himself throughout as a philanthropist (a lover of humankind). How is this ironic?
He passes himself off as one who is interested in the general welfare of humankind. However, his proposal will bring painand suffering to the most innocent and defenseless segment of people.
11. On page 2477, the first paragraph, study the second sentence, beginning “But I am not in the least pain . . . .” What word inthis sentence is ironic?
“Reasonably.” It is the inversion of “reason” for somepeople to expect other people to want to die as quickly as they can.