"A MODEST PROPOSAL" BY JONATHAN SWIFT

"A MODEST PROPOSAL" BY JONATHAN SWIFT

Swift was a brilliant polemist and his satirical vein and interest in the Irish problem is evident in his text of 1729 "a modest proposal".

In this book swift tells the solution to the problem of starvation to death like a professional economist, though he is talking about using children as food.

In fact with astonishing irony he is proposing to solve the problem of famine and hunger killing the 80% of all one-old-babies, and using them as food.

Of course this is a subtle provocation: if we can allow people to starve to death, why not be less hypocritical and eat their children?!

Swift intention is to shock the reader who is forced to either amused disbelief or unconscious acceptance.

Swift shows us with simplicity the tragic facts: thousands of people, especially children, are starving to death, partly because of the reader's indifference.

In fact the situation in Ireland was very bad: in the 18^th century extreme poverty, unemployment, lack of morality, high birth rate and criminality rate were destroying the population.

The main oppressors of the poor were the landlords, who can be ed to cannibals: they have allowed the English control on the island and have devoured their own wealth.

In the most important passage of the book, the narrator uses a technical and professional tone: he quotes numbers, ures, weights and prices to show the advantages of hi proposal.

Then ha draws the picture of the country squire entertaining his guests with banquets, and he describes to us the image of a happy mother counting the money she has made selling her children; at last swift suggests us how to prepare good child meat.