A Modest Proposal
...en caused the readers to think critically not only about policies, but also about the motivations and values behind Swift’s point of view. Swift explained thoroughly the deplorable economic system in Ireland. The majority of the populations were impoverished agricultural laborers, who produced very little income from the toil on the landlords land. In addition, the Irishmen, who were barely being able to support financially their numerous families, they were forced to pay a percentage of their income to the landlords. In other words, Ireland was ruled by lechers, mostly English, whose only concerns were reaping the profits from the miseries of the Irish. The Irish, consequently, had no political, social or economic rights. Swift, in an effort to draw attention to the Irish poverty, suggested that the people would soon be forced to either sell or eat their own offsprings in order to survive. Swift addressed the issue that Ireland had a “surplus” of children (under 12 years of age), whose parents were unable to provide financially for them. However, by selling the young children, especially the one year olds, to English noble families as a source for a delectable dish, the parent’s burden to provide for the child would be removed and an income would be earned as well. Swift was attacking man as a whole, while also attacking the stupidity and foolishness of the politics of Ireland. The state of poverty and famine that Ireland was in at the time Swift was writing his outrageous proposal was due to the lack of a sufficient government. Essentially, Swift was implying that the famine, which led Ireland to the melancholy state of distress, should not have occurred. Swift’s Modest Proposal was a thoroughly thought-out plan, which calculated precisely the number of starving families and unwanted children, the amount necessary to feed the child, the future number of unwanted children being born, the number of breeding mothers, and the income a mother would receive from selling the child. By treating the whole issue of selling and consuming children as appetizing meals in such a careless manner, Swift created an impression that the whole issue was a trivial one. Meanwhile, he was suggesting a horrible atrocity such as cannibalism represents. The Irish and English governments were treating the issue of Irish extreme poverty as an insignificant and bothersome manner. Swift correlated his inhuman and absurd proposition with the merciless attitudes of the Irish and English governments. In other words, according to Swift as well as any rational human being, both governments had ...