Modest Proposal Essay Research Paper Criticisms in

Modest Proposal Essay, Research Paper

Criticisms in Jonathan Swift.s .A Modest Proposal. A satire is a literary

work in which human foolishness and vice are criticized. Satire employs humor

and wit to ridicule human institutions or humanity itself, in order that they

might be remodeled or improved (Random House). A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan

Swift is a prime example of a satire. Throughout the piece it is difficult to

know exactly whom and what Swift is criticizing. This is because Swift

criticizes three groups of people and uses metaphors to make the satire work.

Swift ridicules the English for economically oppressing the Irish, the Irish for

being passive and allowing the English to oppress them, and the reader of the

piece for representing all the wrong doings in society. Many of the images that

Swift paints for the reader are images that he witnessed firsthand while he was

in Ireland. He was able to feel what the people were going through and he put

that feeling into his work. The main group of people that Jonathan Swift indicts

is the English. Swift blames the English for creating the environment that the

Irish are living in. He witnessed the Irish people living in poverty while their

absentee landlords were acquiring great wealth. .The poor tenants will have

something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and

help to pay their landlord.s rent, their corn and cattle being already seized,

and money a thing unknown. (Swift). Swift illustrates how the British

politicians were making laws, to govern the Irish, from afar. Rather than

directly accusing the English of economically oppressing the Irish, Swift

implies it. He uses metaphors to convey his thoughts. The entire and

significantly horrible idea of cannibalism is a metaphor that Swift uses. The

British felt that the laws that they were passing were good and just laws, when

in actuality all they were doing was making the landlords gain more wealth. .I

grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for Landlords;

who, as they have already devoured most of the Parents, seem to have the best

Title to the Children. (Swift). This is an example of the distancing effect

that Swift puts on the metaphor. He distances the reader from the actual

feelings that he should be experiencing. The vocabulary that Swift employees,

forces the reader to focus on economic opportunities rather than the necessities

of the poor. In the same way that Swift felt the English had been doing all

along. Using the word .devoured. is very powerful and it goes beyond the

ordinary language associated with economics. It demands that the reader

interpret the text in the manner that Swift has decided he should. The cruelty

of the text continues on throughout the quote. This reader is shocked by the

violence that is created by the economic situation. It makes the landlords

appear as if they are actually devouring their tenants rather than protecting

them. By using language Swift is able to go a step further and create double

meanings out of the words. For example in the last quote from the proposal, the

word .dear. can be taken two ways. The first meaning, as it appears, a

precious thing. The second meaning of the word dear can be taken as a key to the

value of money, something the English keep taking from the Irish. By selling the

children, economic gains can be made to profit the English and Irish alike.

Swift choose his word carefully in order to convey what he witnessed in Ireland.

The English were devouring the Irish and sending them into devastating depths of

poverty. The second party that Swift criticizes is the Irish. By saying that the

Irish can sell their children on the market for money implies two things: One

that the English have oppressed them beyond a limit of rationality and two that

the Irish are letting the English take advantage of them. Swift paints the Irish

as a group of pushovers that would sell their children for money rather than

stand up for their rights. Swift makes the point that the Irish have been so

harmed by the laws that they take more care in their livestock than their

families. Swift indicts the Irish when he says that if the children were put to

market, men would treat wives with more respect and child would have better

care. .We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of

them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of

their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in

foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to

beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.

(Swift). This example shows how the Irish were passively allowing the English to

oppress them. By taking more care of their livestock then their families, the

Irish played the

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