A Modest Proposal

During the 18th century in Europe, the Age of Enlightenment wasn’t only a good thing for the population. With all of the new machinery and ideas, the city filled with starving, poverty-stricken people that couldn’t take care of themselves or their children.

Jonathan Swift was a minister that saw the harm that people did to each other, the pain that they caused each other, and the pain that children and parents went through during their life of poverty. He hated seeing the hurt. This drove him to become a writer of satire material, one that would get his point across in ways that would shock the average person.

In “Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift shows a strange fix to the problem of poverty. In the satire, he shocks people into seeing that there is always a fix to any problem, though some thought this might not have been the right way to go about it.

Age of Enlightenment

During the 18th century, it was noticed that the city was one of despair and poverty. The streets were “dirty, stinky, filthy, and slovenly, and the alleys were filled with beggars” (Fiero, pp.320). In the midst of the new machinery, the city not only progressed, but also was suddenly in peril. With machines like the spinning wheel and the flying shuttle, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. This new revolution also brought on ‘unregulated capitalism, dangerous working conditions, and the exploitation of labor’ (Fiero, pp. 320). Children often had to live in poor living conditions and worked in factories for up to fourteen hours a day. People were paid poorly and worked long, hard hours.

In the midst of this “depression”, people spoke with more wit and satire than ever before. Jonathan Swift was one of them.

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Angelican Priest that believed that people were mostly corrupt and hated the human race. This view of people led him to write satirical works such as Gulliver’s Travels about the fortunes of a hero in an imaginary land (Fiero, pp 320) and the Modest Proposal.

Modest Proposal

The Modest Proposal was an essay, which was a proposal to find a fix to the problem of starving children and poor families. The problem of families that are too poor to feed and clothe their children was across the country. Swift’s proposal is to fatten up children to be sold to rich families for food. Being sold to meat markets would solve the problem of people starving. In effect, it would help fix the unemployment and economy. The parents would not have to support their children anything, they would receive money for them, and it would improve the food supply of the rich.

Swift is quick to tell about the number of children that could be sold, what their weight is, and how much money could be made by selling these children. He also offers ways in which to cook them and recipes for culinary masterpieces. His thought is that this will solve the economic and political problems of Ireland more than any other solution that has been tried.

Why Would He Write This

For the most part, Swift wrote this satire to show people that they shouldn’t only become beggars. They should go to work for what they need. He said that the other part of his proposal would stop abortions and murdering of parent’s own children. He wanted to stop the senselessness of starving children, begging parents, and the senseless murders of children. He also wanted to show that there is a real problem in this area that needs a real solution.

Conclusion

Jonathan Swift is a clergyman that was tired of seeing what people did to each other. He saw people as harmful to themselves and others, as lazy, as not taking care of their families. He saw people that were homeless, hungry, unclothed. He saw children that were starving, parents that were beggars, filth that filled the home and the streets. He wanted a solution to the problem. He wanted the Government to find a real solution to the problem, and in his irony wrote, “A Modest Proposal”. He felt his solution would do more for the people that anything that the Government had already tried. Though the Modest Proposal was a satire, he wanted them to see that a real solution needed to be found. In shocking people, he wanted them to see that there was a real problem.

References:

Fiero, Gloria (2009), Landmarks in Humanities, McGraw-Hill

A Modest Proposal (1729), Swift, Jonathan, http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Spark Notes, A Modern Proposal (2011), http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/modestproposal/summary.html