-
Swift-A
Modest
Proposal-Summary
&
Analysis
Summary
The
full
title
of
Swift's
pamphlet
is
Modest
Proposal
for
Preventin
g
the
Children
of
Poor
People
from
Being
a
Burthen
to
their
Parents,
or
th
e
Country,
and
for
Making
them
Beneficial
to
the
Publick.
The
tract
is
an
ironically
conceived
attempt
to
out
a
fair,
cheap,
and
easy
Method
f
or
converting
the
starving
children
of
Ireland
into
and
useful
memb
ers
of
the
Commonwealth.
Across
the
country
poor
children,
predominantl
y
Catholics,
are
living
in
squalor
because
their
families
are
too
poor
to
kee
p
them
fed
and
clothed.
The
author
argues,
by
hard-edged
economic
reasoning
as
well
as
fr
om
a
self-righteous
moral
stance,
for
a
way
to
turn
this
problem
into
its
o
wn
solution.
His
proposal,
in
effect,
is
to
fatten
up
these
undernourished
c
hildren
and
feed
them
to
Ireland's
rich
land-owners.
Children
of
the
poor
c
ould
be
sold
into
a
meat
market
at
the
age
of
one,
he
argues,
thus
comb
ating
overpopulation
and
unemployment,
sparing
families
the
expense
of
c
hild-bearing
while
providing
them
with
a
little
extra
income,
improving
the
culinary
experience
of
the
wealthy,
and
contributing
to
the
overall
econo
mic
well-
being
of
the
nation.
The
author
offers
statistical
support
for
his
assertions
and
gives
specific
da
ta
about
the
number
of
children
to
be
sold,
their
weight
and
price,
and
th
e
projected
consumption
patterns.
He
suggests
some
recipes
for
preparing
this
delicious
new
meat,
and
he
feels
sure
that
innovative
cooks
will
be
qu
ick
to
generate
more.
He
also
anticipates
that
the
practice
of
selling
and
e
ating
children
will
have
positive
effects
on
family
morality:
husbands
will
tr
eat
their
wives
with
more
respect,
and
parents
will
value
their
children
in
ways
hitherto
unknown.
His
conclusion
is
that
the
implementation
of
this
p
roject
will
do
more
to
solve
Ireland's
complex
social,
political,
and
economi
c
problems
than
any
other
measure
that
has
been
proposed.
Context
Jonathan
Swift
was
born
in
Dublin
in
1667.
His
father
died
before
he
was
born,
leaving
the
family
with
relatively
modest
means.
Nevertheless,
as
a
member
of
the
Anglo-
Irish
ruling
class,
Swift
received
the
best
education
I
reland
could
offer.
As
a
young
man,
he
worked
as
private
secretary
to
Sir
William
Temple,
a
retired
Whig
diplomat,
at
Moor
Park
in
southern
England.
During
his
ten
years
in
this
position,
Swift
took
advantage
of
Temple's
va
st
library
to
round
out
his
education
and
immersed
himself
in
the
politics
and
opinions
of
this
prominent
intellectual.
Swift
took
orders
in
the
Anglica
n
Church
in
1694,
and
he
was
named
dean
of
St.
Patrick's
Cathedral
in
D
ublin
in
1713.
For
many
years
he
worked,
anxiously
and
unsuccessfully,
to
secure
himself
a
permanent
appointment
in
England;
during
this
period
h
e
considered
his
life
in
Ireland
a
kind
of
exile.
Shuttling
back
and
forth
be
tween
Ireland
and
England
with
some
regularity,
he
became
increasingly
e
mbroiled
in
English
politics.
He
also
established
himself
in
the
literary
circl
e
that
included
Addison
and
Steele.
Later,
he
changed
both
political
and
lit
erary
loyalties
and
befriended
Pope,
Gay,
and
Arbuthnot,
who
would
be
his
lifelong
friends.
Swift's
Ireland
was
a
country
that
had
been
effectively
co
ntrolled
by
England
for
nearly
500
years.
The
Stuarts
had
established
a
Pr
otestant
governing
aristocracy
amid
the
country's
relatively
poor
Catholic
p
opulation.
Denied
union
with
England
in
1707
(when
Scotland
was
granted
it),
Ireland
continued
to
suffer
under
English
trade
restrictions
and
found
the
authority
of
its
own
Parliament
in
Dublin
severely
limited.
Swift,
thoug
h
born
a
member
of
Ireland's
colonial
ruling
class,
came
to
be
known
as
o
ne
of
the
greatest
of
Irish
patriots.
He,
however,
considered
himself
more
English
than
Irish,
and
his
loyalty
to
Ireland
was
often
ambivalent
in
spite
of
his
staunch
support
for
certain
Irish
causes.
The
complicated
nature
of
his
own
relationship
with
England
may
have
left
him
particularly
sympath
etic
to
the
injustices
and
exploitation
Ireland
suffered
at
the
hand
of
its
m
ore
powerful
neighbor.
Particularly
in
the
1720s,
Swift
became
vehemently
engaged
in
Irish
politic
s.
He
reacted
to
the
debilitating
effects
of
English
commercial
and
political
injustices
in
a
large
body
of
pamphlets,
essays,
and
satirical
works,
includi
ng
the
perennially
popular
Gulliver's
Travels.
A
Modest
Proposal,
published
in
1729
in
response
to
worsening
conditions
in
Ireland,
is
perhaps
the
sev
erest
and
most
scathing
of
all
Swift's
pamphlets.
The
tract
did
not
shock
o
r
outrage
contemporary
readers
as
Swift
must
have
intended;
its
economic
s
was
taken
as
a
great
joke,
its
more
incisive
critiques
ignored.
Although
Swift's
disgust
with
the
state
of
the
nation
continued
to
increase,
A
Modes
t
Proposal
was
the
last
of
his
essays
about
Ireland.
Swift
wrote
mostly
po
etry
in
the
later
years
of
his
life,
and
he
died
in
1745.
Analysis
In
A
Modest
Proposal,
Swift
vents
his
mounting
aggravation
at
the
i
neptitude
of
Ireland's
politicians,
the
hypocrisy
of
the
wealthy,
the
tyranny
of
the
English,
and
the
squalor
and
degradation
in
which
he
sees
so
man
y
Irish
people
living.
While
A
Modest
Proposal
bemoans
the
bleak
situation
of
an
Ireland
almost
totally
subject
to
England's
exploitation,
it
also
expre
sses
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
no
t
only
the
English
but
also
the
Irish
themselves--and
not
only
the
Irish
pol
iticians
but
also
the
masses--
are
responsible
for
the
nation's
lamentable
st
ate.
His
compassion
for
the
misery
of
the
Irish
people
is
a
severe
one,
an
d
he
includes
a
critique
of
their
incompetence
in
dealing
with
their
own
pr
oblems.
Political
pamphleteering
was
a
fashionable
pastime
in
Swift's
day,
w
hich
saw
vast
numbers
of
tracts
and
essays
advancing
political
opinions
an
d
proposing
remedies
for
Ireland's
economic
and
social
ills.
Swift's
tract
pa
rodies
the
style
and
method
of
these,
and
the
grim
irony
of
his
own
soluti
on
reveals
his
personal
despair
at
the
failure
of
all
this
paper
journalism
t
o
achieve
any
actual
progress.
His
piece
protests
the
utter
inefficacy
of
Iri
sh
political
leadership,
and
it
also
attacks
the
orientation
of
so
many
conte
mporary
reformers
toward
economic
utilitarianism.
While
Swift
himself
was
an
astute
economic
thinker,
he
often
expressed
contempt
for
the
applicati
on
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
ma
kes
his
point
negatively,
stringing
together
an
appalling
set
of
morally
unt
enable
positions
in
order
to
cast
blame
and
aspersions
far
and
wide.
The
e
ssay
progresses
through
a
series
of
surprises
that
first
shocks
the
reader
and
then
causes
her
to
think
critically
not
only
about
policies,
but
also
abo
ut
motivations
and
values.
Paragraphs
1-7
Summary
The
author
invokes
the
and
all-too-
common
sight
of
w
omen
and
children
begging
on
the
streets
of
Ireland.
These
mothers,
unab
le
to
work
for
their
livelihood,
forced
to
employ
all
their
Time
panha
ndling
for
food.
The
children,
also
for
want
of
work,
grow
up
to
be
thieves,
or
else
emigrate
fight
for
the
Pretender
(the
son
of
James
II,
who
lo
st
the
throne
of
England
in
the
Glorious
Revolution
of
1688)
or
to
seek
th
eir
fortunes
in
the
Americas.
The
author
appeals
to
the
general
consensus
that
these
beggared
children
are,
the
present
deplorable
State
of
the
K
ingdom,
a
very
great
additional
Grievance.
He
supposes
that
anyone
who
could
devise
a
way
to
make
these
street
children
into
productive
members
of
society
would
be
doing
the
nation
a
great
service.
The
author's
own
ntention,
he
says,
goes
even
further
than
providing
for
these
children
of
Professed
Beggars
his
proposal
includes
in
its
scope
all
children
a
cer
tain
Age
whose
parents,
though
they
have
not
yet
resorted
to
begging,
ar
e
too
poor
to
support
them.
Having
considered
Ireland's
population
problem
for
many
years,
the
author
has
concluded
that
the
arguments
and
schemes
of
others
upon
the
subject
are
wholly
inadequate.
They
have
been,
he
says,
mistake
n
in
their
Computation.
He
offers
some
calculations
of
his
own:
a
newbor
n
infant
can
be
supported
for
its
first
year
on
breast-
milk
and
two
shillings,
a
sum
that
can
easily
be
obtained
by
begging.
It
is
after
this
relatively
u
ndemanding
first
year,
therefore,
that
Swift's
proposal
will
go
into
effect.
I
propose
to
provide
for
them
in
such
a
Manner,
as,
instead
of
being
a
Ch
arge
upon
their
Parents,
or
the
Parish,
or
wanting
Food
and
Raiment
for
t
he
rest
of
their
Lives;
they
shall,
on
the
contrary,
contribute
to
the
Feedin
g,
and
partly
to
the
Cloathing,
of
many
Thousands.
Another
advantage
of
his
proposal,
Swift
says,
is
that
it
will
reduce
the
number
of
abortions
an
d
infanticides.
He
speculates
that
most
women
undertake
these
highly
imm
oral
practices
to
avoid
the
Expence
than
the
Shame
of
unwanted
c
hildren.
The
author
fills
out
the
background
to
his
proposal
with
additional
statistic
al
data.
In
a
national
population
of
1.5
million,
there
are
probably
200,000
women
of
childbearing
age.
Out
of
these,
30,000
might
be
supposed
to
b
e
financially
able
to
maintain
their
own
children.
That
leaves
170,000
eders.
Of
these,
perhaps
50,000
will
miscarry
or
lose
their
children
in
the
first
year,
leaving
120,000
children
born
of
poor
parents
each
year.
Question
therefore
is,
How
this
Number
shall
be
reared,
and
provided
for?
In
the
current
state
of
the
nation
Swift
asserts
it
to
be
impossible.
They
cannot
be
employed
in
a
country
that
build[s]
Houses,...nor
cultiv
ate[s]
Land.
Except
for
the
exceptionally
gifted,
they
will
not
be
able
to
s
teal
for
a
living
until
they
are
at
least
six
years
of
age,
I
confe
ss,
they
learn
the
Rudiments
much
earlier.
A
child
under
the
age
of
twelv
e
no
saleable
Commodity,
and
even
when
they
are
old
enough
to
be
s
old
into
servitude,
children
bring
no
very
large
price--certainly
not
enough
to
offset
the
costs
involved
in
rearing
them
to
that
age.
Commentary
Swift's
opening
paragraph
offers
a
starkly
realistic,
although
compassionate,
portrait
of
families
of
beggars
in
Ireland.
The
first
sentence
gives
a
fairly
straightforward
and
un-ironic
description,
but
by
the
second
sentence
the
author
begins
to
offer
judgments
and
explanations
about
this
rampant
beg
gary:
the
mothers
are
unable
to
work,
and
have
been
into
their
c
urrent
poverty
and
disgrace.
Swift's
language
here
reverses
the
prevailing
sentiment
of
his
day,
which
held
that
if
beggars
were
poor,
it
was
their
o
wn
fault.
The
reader
is
unsure
at
this
point
whether
to
take
Swift's
profess
ed
compassion
for
the
beggars
as
earnest
or
ironic.
The
issue
never
beco
mes
completely
clear.
In
this
passage,
and
in
the
tract
as
a
whole,
he
ten
ds
not
to
choose
sides;
his
stance
is
one
of
general
exasperation
with
all
parties
in
a
complex
problem.
Swift
is
generous
with
his
disdain,
and
his
ir
ony
works
both
to
censure
the
poor
and
to
critique
the
society
that
enable
s
their
poverty.
The
remark
about
Irish
Catholics
who
go
to
Spain
to
fight
for
the
Pretender
offers
a
good
example
of
the
complexity
of
Swift's
judg
ments:
he
is
commenting
on
a
woeful
lack
of
national
loyalty
among
the
I
rish,
and
at
the
same
time
critiquing
a
nation
that
drives
its
own
citizens
t
o
mercenary
activity.
He
makes
a
similar
stab
at
national
policies
and
prio
rities
with
the
aside
that
takes
for
granted
that
poor
Irish
children
will
not
find
employment,
since
neither
build
Houses,...nor
cultivate
Land.
The
reader
is
inclined
at
first
to
identify
with
the
in
part
becau
se
Swift
has
given
no
reason,
at
this
point,
not
to.
His
compassion
in
the
first
paragraph,
the
matter-of-fact
tone
of
the
second,
his
seeming
objectiv
ity
in
weighing
other
proposals,
and
his
moral
outrage
at
the
frequency
of
abortion
and
infanticide--these
characteristics
all
speak
out
in
his
favor
as
a
potential
reformer.
Yet
the
depersonalizing
vocabulary
with
which
he
e
mbarks
on
his
computations
is
calculated
to
give
us
pause.
He
describes
a
newborn
child
as
just
drooped
from
its
Dam
and
identifies
women
as
reeders.
Against
this
language
the
word
(which
ought
to
make
sen
se
as
a
way
of
talking
about
hapless
human
beings)
takes
on
a
wry
tone
when
applied
to
Ireland's
now
strictly
statistical
population.
This
language
offers
an
early
indication
of
the
way
the
author's
proposal
reduces
human
beings
alternately
to
statistical
entities,
to
economic
commodities,
and
to
a
nimals.
Paragraphs
8-19
Summary
The
author
begins
detailing
his
proposal,
saying
that
he
hopes
it
ll
not
be
liable
to
the
least
Objection.
He
offers
the
information,
derived
f
rom
an
American
he
knows,
that
a
one-year-old
child
is
most
delicious,
nourishing,
and
wholesome
Food;
whether
Stewed,
Roasted,
Baked,
or
Bo
iled.
Based
on
this
fact,
he
proposes
that
the
120,000
Irish
children
born
in
a
year
should
be
disposed
of
as
follows:
20,000
should
be
kept
for
bree
ding
and
continuance
of
the
population,
but
only
a
fourth
of
these
are
to
be
males,
in
accordance
with
the
practice
common
among
breeders
of
live
stock
(
Male
will
be
sufficient
to
serve
four
Females
the
other
100,0
00
are
to
be
fattened
and
then
sold
as
a
culinary
delicacy.
He
proceeds
to
offer
suggestions
as
to
the
sort
of
dishes
that
might
be
prepared
from
th
eir
meat.
After
this
quick
outline,
the
author
moves
on
to
the
specifics
of
the
proposal.
First,
he
discusses
the
price
of
the
meat.
Since
a
one-year-old
b
aby
weighs,
on
average,
only
twenty-eight
pounds,
the
flesh
will
be
relativ
ely
expensive.
These
children,
therefore,
will
be
marketed
primarily
to
Irel
and's
rich
landlords,
who,
as
Swift
points
out,
already
devoured
mos
t
of
the
Parents
anyway.
Second,
he
speculates
that
the
new
foodstuff
wil
l
be
in
season
year-
round--with
perhaps
a
particular
surge
in
the
springtim
e.
The
cost
of
nursing
a
Child
to
marketable
age
is
2
shillings
a
year.
The
cost
of
the
meat
will
be
ten
shillings,
and
the
profits
of
the
sal
e
will
be
mutual:
the
mother
will
make
eight
shillings,
and
the
landlord
wh
o
buys
the
child
will
not
only
have
Dishes
of
excellent
nutritive
Meat,
but
will
also
enjoy
an
increase
in
his
own
popularity
among
his
tenants.
In
times
of
need,
the
skin
could
also
be
used
for
leather.
The
author
does
not
doubt
that
there
will
be
plenty
of
people
in
Dublin
willing
to
conduct
t
hese
transactions
and
to
butcher
the
meat.
He
then
tells
of
a
friend's
proposed
on
my
Scheme,
which
w
as
that,
in
light
of
the
shortage
of
deer
on
the
estates
of
Ireland's
wealthy
Gentlemen,
teenage
boys
and
girls
might
be
butchered
as
an
alternative
t
o
venison--especially
since
so
many
of
these
young
people
are
already
sta
rving
and
unable
to
find
employment.
Swift,
however,
resists
this
idea,
pro
testing
that
Flesh
was
generally
tough
and
lean...and
their
Taste
dis
agreeable.
He
also
speculates
that
scrupulous
people
might
be
apt
to
censure
such
a
practice
(although
indeed
very
unjustly)
as
a
little
borde
ring
upon
Cruelty.
The
author
follows
this
up
with
an
anecdote
about
the
natives
of
Formosa
and
their
cannibalistic
practices.
He
then
acknowledges
a
general
concern
about
the
vast
number
of
elderly,
sick,
and
handicappe
d
among
the
poor,
who
are
no
more
able
to
find
work
than
the
children.
Having
been
asked
to
consider
how
the
country
could
be
relieved
of
that
b
urden,
Swift
declares
himself
unworried--these
people
are
dying
off
fast
en
ough
anyway.
Commentary
The
irony
of
Swift's
piece
turns
on
the
assumption
that
his
audience,
regar
dless
of
their
national
or
religious
affiliations
or
their
socioeconomic
status,
will
all
agree
to
the
fact
that
eating
children
is
morally
reprehensible.
The
reader
registers
a
shock
at
this
point
in
the
proposal
and
recognizes
that
a
literal
reading
of
Swift's
pamphlet
will
not
do.
Swift
is
clearly
not
sugges
ting
that
the
people
of
Ireland
actually
eat
their
children,
and
so
the
task
becomes
one
of
identifying
his
actual
argument.
This
involves
separating
t
he
persona
of
the
from
Swift
himself.
The
former
is
clearly
a
c
aricature;
his
values
are
deplorable,
but
despite
his
cold
rationality
and
his
self-
righteousness,
he
is
not
morally
indifferent.
Rather,
he
seems
to
have
a
single,
glaring
blind
spot
regarding
the
reprehensible
act
of
eating
childr
en,
but
he
is
perfectly
ready
to
make
judgments
about
the
incidental
mora
l
benefits
and
consequences
of
his
proposal.
The
proposer
himself
is
not
th
e
main
target
of
Swift's
angry
satire,
though
he
becomes
the
vehicle
for
s
ome
biting
parodies
on
methods
of
social
thought.
The
proposal
draws
attention
to
the
self-degradation
of
the
nation
as
a
wh
ole
by
illustrating
it
in
shockingly
literal
ways.
The
idea
of
fattening
up
a
s
tarving
population
in
order
to
feed
the
rich
casts
a
grim
judgment
on
the
nature
of
social
relations
in
Ireland.
The
language
that
likens
people
to
liv
estock
becomes
even
more
prevalent
in
this
part
of
the
proposal.
The
bree