Effectiveness Of A Modest Proposal

The year is 1729. Life in Dublin, Ireland consists of less living and more suffering. Over population and poverty become every family's newest members. Catholics and Protestants are in constant struggle, as their two hundred year battle continues in the land of green. One man filled with bitterness takes on the task of slapping fellow countrymen in the face with reality. One man named Jonathan Swift provides the hand. Jonathan Swift writes "A Modest Proposal" with "no other motive than the public good of my country." He writes criticism upon the countrymen of Ireland, upon the masses. With his proposal, Swift's "intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars," because he wants to help solve the problem for all of Ireland. In order to help the country, Swift challenges the country. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is effective in highlighting Ireland's problems and subliminally challenging the Irish to solve fix the problems at hand.

Throughout "A Modest Proposal" swift points out numerous problems and solutions. The rest of the title of this work reads "For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public." This extension of the title holds the main point of this piece. Swift's proposal is to find an easy method to turn the children of the country into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth." All over Ireland, poor children live in squalor because their parents cannot support them at all. The speaker proposes to turn the problem into the solution, by plumping up the undernourished children so they may be sold to Ireland's rich landowners. When the child reaches one year of age, he will be sold at the market and simultaneously deplete overpopulation and save family's money from the expense of children. Not only that, but selling the children would supply the families with more money and would even help the status of the economy. Swift then continues to offer numbers and stats about the number of children to be sold and their weight and price. If sold properly, a mother should make about 8 schillings net profit from selling her child. In his mind, the practice of selling and eating kids will help the home front as well. Husbands will treat their wives with more respect, and in turn mothers will begin to value their children. The author concludes that if this project is taken into action it will do more to solve Ireland's complex social, political, and economic problems than another other proposal. Yet Swift's proposal is hopes to solve the problem in a different way than eating babies.

In the real world, "A Modest Proposal" is anything but modest, and this was Swift's point. Multiple techniques used throughout the piece make this an effective idea. One of his techniques is the use of satire, which is anything less than ingenious. The proposal, in reality, is vulgar and inhumane, and thus becomes effective. Sarcasm becomes a great tool for the use of satire. Human kind would never support such an outlandish idea. To the speaker, the proposal becomes the panacea over all other ideas because a solution is "utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed." Although he knows other ideas will work, he is making an obvious challenge for others to come up with their own solution. Throughout the piece Swift's satire becomes a challenge to the masses, that if this idea is so wrong, he wants the public to find their own solution. By approaching such a serious matter with an alien idea, the Irish detest Swift's idea and they start to put pen to paper and write their own modest proposals.

Running parallel to the use of satire, the clarity in this work help make the piece more efficient. The proposal is clear that "a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food." Once again, by making such an unorthodox idea seem so real, people will have to think. Cause and effect plays a major role. By making his idea clear, Irish will think twice about letting Swift's plan take action. To the morals of most, eating

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