A Modest

Proposal

by Jonathan Swift

Satire is a sort of glass,

wherein beholders do
generally discover
everybodys face but their
own; which is the chief
reason for that kind of
reception it meets in the
world and that so very few

A MODEST PROPOSAL

FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF

POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND, FROM BEING
A BURDEN ON THEIR PARENTS OR
COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM
BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLICK.

And unless it wants to break from its social

function, art must show the world as
changeable. And help to change it.
Max Ernst 1899-1972

The Age of Reason

1660-1780
Swift wrote his satires during The Age of

Reason
In Europe in the late 17th to end of the 18th
century, there was a general intellectual and
literary movement known as the enlightenment.
The movement is characterized by Rationalism
a philosophy that emphasized the role of reason
rather than sensory experience or faith in
answering basic questions of human existence.
Concern regarding human existence led to
a need to address social problems.
This movement is sometimes known as the
Neoclassical Age.

OPENING OTHERS EYES

What if you had good ideas for

solving a terrible social problem, but
no one would listen to you?
How would you get peoples
attention?

Jonathan Swift faced such a situation in the

late 1720s when starvation was
widespread in Ireland.
Irish harvests had been poor
for years.
Farmers couldnt pay the rents
demanded by their English landlords.
Beggars and starving children filled
the streets.
Englands policies kept the Irish poor.

Jonathan Swift (16671745)

Well-known as the author
of the satirical political

fantasy, Gulliver's Travels.

Swift published the Modest Proposal in 1729 as
a pamphlet (a kind of essay in an unbound
booklet).
At this time, and for many years afterward,
Ireland (not an independent country) was very
poor.
Most people born in Ireland were Roman
Catholics & employed as agricultural laborers or
tenant farmers.
The landlords (landowners) were paid from the
produce of the land at rates which the workers
could rarely afford.

The ruling class were usually

Protestants
Many of them were not born in Ireland,
nor did they live there permanently
If the laborers lost their work, there would
always be other poor people to take it up
There was no social security system and
starvation was as common as in the Third
World today
Swift knows, in writing the Proposal, that
in living memory, Irish people had been
driven to cannibalism

A Modest Proposal?

Appalled by the misery in

Ireland, Jonathan Swift
set out to make the
English more responsive
to their neighbors
suffering.

The Modest Proposal begins by using vivid

imagery to describe the very real poverty of
people in Ireland.
Swift presents this quite sympathetically but
sets out facts and details, showing that there
is a surplus of children who cannot be fed.
With a masterful use of rhetorical
(persuasive) devices, Swift, through the use
of a persona/speaker, then:
a. suggests solutions for the problem
b. describes how the solution
will benefit society
c. addresses opposing points of view
d. explains why his solution is the best.

VOCABULARY
Some of the unfamiliar terms in the Modest Proposal are explained
below:

Chair: (Here) a Sedan Chair - a covered chair supported by poles,

carried by two bearers.
Episcopal: To do with (here appointed by) a bishop - the adjective
refers to church administration at the time Swift wrote.
Gibbet: Place where criminals are hanged.
Mandarin: Important official serving an oriental (originally Chinese)
ruler, or any high official today.
Papists: Supporters of the Pope, an insulting name for Catholics.
Pretender: James Stuart, a Catholic who pretended to (claimed) the
English and Scottish thrones. He is sometimes known as the Old
Pretender, while his son, Charles Edward Stuart, is known as the
Young Pretender (or Bonnie Prince Charlie)
Shambles: Place (usually in a town) where animals are slaughtered
and butchered.
Solar year: A year in the ordinary sense (as measured by the earth's
going once round the sun).
Other words to know:
.1. importune
6. emulate
2. raiment 7. expedient
3. repine
8. parsimony
4. gibbet
9. animosity
5. vintner 10. overture

Rhetoric Review

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion.

It is the effort on the part of the speaker
or writer to take full advantage of the
communication process in order to bring
about a change of thinking or acting on
the part of the listener or reader.
Rhetoric may be reflected in the efforts
of the speaker or writer to communicate:
Some aspects of a self image
Some emphasis of line of reasoning in the
message or argument
Some appeal to rational or emotional response of
the audience.

Rhetorical Devices
Page
Satire: A literary manner
that1
blends a critical

attitude with HUMOR and WIT for the purpose of

improving human institutions or humanity. True
satirists are conscious of the frailty of human
institutions and attempt through laughter not so much
to tear them down as to inspire a remodeling. Irony
and sarcasm are often used in satire.
Irony: A contrast between what appears to be and
what really is. In verbal irony, words imply the
opposite of what they literally mean.
Voice/persona: The voice comes from the narrator
in a piece of writing. The voice is not necessarily the
writer he/she may create a persona to put forth
opinions and ideas opposite to the writers personal
opinions.

Rhetorical Devices - Page

2

The Image of the Speaker

The speaker may attempt to reflect a

variety of images of self in order to gain
a positive or credible image. Some
possible categories may be:
well educated - concerned citizen
sincere
- common sense
just plain folks - humorous & sharp
witted
well organized - altruistic

Rhetorical Devices Page 3

A Readers Response
The reader or listener responds to various ways that the message
is styled to elicit a range of responses. The speaker or writer
manipulates language in order to attract attention.

Some techniques are:

-

Rhetorical questions
- Allusion
Figures of speech - sentence variety
Repetition
- striking imagery

With persuasive writing, the writer must also ANTICIPATE

OPPOSING POINTS OF VIEW by addressing the
COUNTERARGUMENT
- If the speaker or writer acknowledges that there are opposing
arguments and answers them, then the reader or listener will be
more convinced of the argument.

Rhetorical Devices
Page
4 example of
A Modest Proposal
is a classic

persuasive writing used for the purpose of satire.

Watch for these persuasive techniques:
1. LOGICAL APPEALS use evidence such as facts
or statistics to support a position.
2. EMOTIONAL APPEALS use words that arouse
strong feelings. Feelings could include:
Joy Pride
Fear Greed
Hatred
Love Respect Despair Anger
Pity
Shame
Envy Faith
Selflessness
3. ETHICAL APPEALS establish the writers
sincerity and qualifications.

Swifts Rhetoric

In addition watch out for:

- irony
- the image of the speaker - the use of a
voice/persona
- the use of rhetorical questions
- a the use of allusion
- the use of figures of speech metaphors, similes,
personification

- sentence variety
- repetition
- striking imagery
- how does Swift anticipate opposing points of view
by addressing the counterargument?

FINALLY

What image of Swift and/or the

speaker emerges after reading A
Modest Proposal?
Is Swifts message clear and
worthwhile?
Does the work show a balance of
reason (logos) and emotion (pathos)?

PROBLEM

The Modest Proposal begins by describing the

very real poverty of people in Ireland. Swift
presents this quite sympathetically but sets out
facts and details, showing that there is a
surplus of children who cannot be fed.
He considers the possibility of selling the
children into slavery, but objects to this - not
because it is cruel or wrong, but because no-one
will buy children below twelve years of age.
This means that there is a long period in which
the children cannot be fed, because their
parents are too poor, but are too small and weak
to be sold into work.

SOLUTION?
Next he digresses to make the
shocking claim that, according to an
American whom he knows, a healthy
child at one year old is:
a most delicious, nourishing and
wholesome Food, whether Stewed,
Roasted, Baked or Boyled

SOLUTION

From this beginning, Swift proceeds to develop his

scheme by breeding children for food.
For example, he states that landlords will be
popular with tenants because they will be able to
pay them more, to buy the children for the table.
He reasons that, by selling their children so soon,
mothers will be able to go back to work, until they
produce the next child.
He notes that, as Catholics seem to breed more
rapidly than Protestants, his scheme will help
reduce their numbers - as most of the children sold
for food will be Papists, as he calls them.
And he suggests that some purchasers will not only
wish to eat the children, but will flay the skin and
make gloves or boots from it, as from a fine leather.

OPPOSING POINTS OF
VIEW/COUNTERARGUMENT

He moves to list six reasons why his scheme is a

good one. Before concluding he advises people
not to suggest other solutions - like taxing
absentee landlords, of encouraging the domestic
economy by buying Irish goods, of discouraging
pride, vanity, idleness and gambling, and
generally of expecting the wealthy to be more
compassionate to the poor.
He argues finally, that an early death would have
been preferable to the misery many poor people
experience in their adult lives.
And he claims to be quite impartial, because his
oldest child is nine and his wife past child-bearing
- so that he will not be able to make any profit by
selling his own children