Modest Proposal

2 Pages 410 Words

Modest Proposal
Many years ago during the 1700’s, England dominated the falling territory of Ireland. England conquered the territory and restricted the Irish trade and agriculture, which made few jobs available. This made life, for Irelands poor extremely harsh. To make things worse, during the 1720’s many crops failed and many faced starvation. Also, the vast majority of the Irish were Roman Catholics and consequently these people could not own land and had to pay high rents.
As a result Jonathan Swift wrote a proposal to the Irish, which was written in irony. Swift wrote this proposal to the Irish, so that the English government would open their eyes and see what was happening to this once great territory.
Swift began his proposal by stating that the territory of Ireland was extremely poor. Because of this almost all of the people of this territory were starving and dieing and the problem was only becoming worse in time. So Swift came up with a ironic plan, that was viciously gruesome. He stated that all of the babies that they were born from here on out were to be breast fed up to one year of age. As a result this would plump in up the child, which would then be served as a meal to all of the older citizens. By doing this Swift would knock out two birds with one stone. First of all, this would fix the starvation crisis, and second it would fix the over population of the territory.
Swift stated this gruesome act in Irony in his proposal for one reason. He wanted to open the eyes of the English and show them and explain to them how extraordinary horrible the life of the Irish settlers had become. Swift was stating that the problem was getting almost to point where the settlers were about to have no other direction to go to.
Swift Second ironic statement in his proposal was that he was comparing the females of this territory, to only being breeders to keep them selves alive. Swift states this, because he wants to sho...