Scribd
Upload
186 views

A Modest Proposal

Swift's essay A Modest Proposal satirizes England's exploitation of Ireland and the failure of Irish politicians to improve conditions. It suggests selling impoverished Irish children as food to criticize the indifference of the wealthy and leaders to the people's suffering. Through grim irony, Swift aims to shock readers into thinking critically about policies, motivations, and values regarding Ireland's problems.

Uploaded by

Rebecca Farruggio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
186 views

A Modest Proposal

Swift's essay A Modest Proposal satirizes England's exploitation of Ireland and the failure of Irish politicians to improve conditions. It suggests selling impoverished Irish children as food to criticize the indifference of the wealthy and leaders to the people's suffering. Through grim irony, Swift aims to shock readers into thinking critically about policies, motivations, and values regarding Ireland's problems.

Uploaded by

Rebecca Farruggio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

A MODEST PROPOSAL

ANALISYS:
In A Modest Proposal, Swift vents his mounting aggravation at the ineptitude of Ireland's
politicians, the hypocrisy of the wealthy, the tyranny of the English, and the squalor and
degradation in which he sees so many Irish people living. While A Modest Proposal bemoans the
bleak situation of an Ireland almost totally subject to England's exploitation, it also expresses
Swift's utter disgust at the Irish people's seeming inability to mobilize on their own behalf. Without
excusing any party, the essay shows that not only the English but also the Irish themselves--and not
only the Irish politicians but also the masses--are responsible for the nation's lamentable state. His
compassion for the misery of the Irish people is a severe one, and he includes a critique of their
incompetence in dealing with their own problems.
Political pamphleteering was a fashionable pastime in Swift's day, which saw vast numbers of tracts
and essays advancing political opinions and proposing remedies for Ireland's economic and social
ills. Swift's tract parodies the style and method of these, and the grim irony of his own solution
reveals his personal despair at the failure of all this paper journalism to achieve any actual progress.
His piece protests the utter inefficacy of Irish political leadership, and it also attacks the orientation
of so many contemporary reformers toward economic utilitarianism. While Swift himself was an
astute economic thinker, he often expressed contempt for the application of supposedly scientific
management ideas to humanitarian concerns.
The main rhetorical challenge of this bitingly ironic essay is capturing the attention of an audience
whose indifference has been well tested. Swift makes his point negatively, stringing together an
appalling set of morally untenable positions in order to cast blame and aspersions far and wide. The
essay progresses through a series of surprises that first shocks the reader and then causes her to
think critically not only about policies, but also about motivations and values.
STUDY QUESTIONS:
 What is Swift's attitude toward the beggars he describes in the opening paragraph?
The irony of this passage, and in Swift's treatment of the poor in general, is neither simple nor
straightforward. His compassion for these people is mitigated by a strong sense that people ought to
take the initiative to help themselves out of their own difficulties. Swift's language here plays on the
popular judgment of beggars as lazy opportunists. While Swift does not entirely dissociate himself
from this opinion, his purpose here is to show the complex web of social and economic realities that
supports and perpetuates such a situation.
 Where do the speaker's allegiances lie in this essay? With what social groups does he
identify himself?
The speaker is a Protestant and a member of the Irish upper class. While he professes sympathy for
the plight of the poor Catholic population, he also holds a fairly contemptuous opinion of them. He
takes great pains to enumerate the advantages of his proposed project for the wealthy, who would
presumably be called upon to implement it. Yet Swift's irony implicates this moneyed class for their
monetary greed, their personal indulgence, their unflagging attention to their own self-interest, and
their indifference to the state of the poor and the state of the nation as a whole.
 What sort of persona does Swift create for the "author" of A Modest Proposal?

1
The "proposer" is notable for his vanity, his cold-heartedness, and the ruthlessness of his logic. He
represents the hypocrisy and superficiality of many would-be reformers, whose seeming
benevolence masks such impediments as prejudice, intolerance, sentimentalism, and hyper-
abstraction. His reductive handling of suffering humans as statistical entities and economic
commodities is what makes him most unappealing, in spite of the calm and reasonable tone of his
argumentation.

You might also like