A 3 page paper which examines elements of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: JR7_RAwdp.rtf
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seen as masterful today. In his essay A Modest Proposal he sets out to make a great deal of comments on English society, especially as it relates to the Irish
people. He ridicules, and strongly, perhaps almost distastefully, points out their flaws through many different approaches, all of which are heavy in satire. The following paper examines how he ridicules
English society in this particular essay. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift In this essay Swift primarily focuses on how the children of the impoverished Irish people could
be put to better use through being used for food, which would get rid of the unsightly poor children and also leave their parents more time and energy for work.
In many ways this is incredibly reflection of the supposed Age of Enlightenment. He pokes fun, and serious commentary, at the way in which the English would rationalize what they
were thinking, as though it were enlightened. This is seen when he states "As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and
maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation" (Swift, 1729). Such wording indicates that through a truly logical and enlightened
form of thought a solution may be found to this problem. At this point he notes that a child, just "dropped from its dam" would be fed by her
for a year but then after that it should be considered that such useless children be used to "contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands"
(Swift, 1729). In this one sees not only this supposed enlightenment but also the superior attitude of the English seen in their language of apparent intelligence. There is a clear