A 3 page essay that analyzes the irony in Swift's famous essay. In his famous satire, "A Modest Proposal," Jonathan Swift carries a metaphor to its most extreme, if logical, conclusion. At the time, i.e., the early 1700s, British rule over Ireland a causing widespread poverty and starvation conditions. Swift's satirical stance is that since British landlords "have devoured most of the parents," it seems clear to him that they "have the best title to the children" (Swift 1642). In other words, as the British were, metaphorically, "eating" the Irish alive with their absentee landlord policies, they might as well literal eat their babies. As this indicates, Swift's main tool in writing this social protest against British rule is extreme irony. No additional sources cited.
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satirical stance is that since British landlords "have devoured most of the parents," it seems clear to him that they "have the best title to the children" (Swift 1642). In
other words, as the British were, metaphorically, "eating" the Irish alive with their absentee landlord policies, they might as well literal eat their babies. As this indicates, Swifts main tool
in writing this social protest against British rule is extreme irony. It is ironic, considering his proposal, that Swifts narrator begins his essay by describing the extreme poverty of
the mothers who beg on the streets of Dublin, "followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags" (Swift 1640). He blames their pitiable state on the existence of
their children, as trying to feed them occupies all their time and prevents the women working "for their honest livelihood" (Swift 1640). The persona that Swift creates for his narrative
voice then indicates that he has a plan that will greatly alleviate this deplorable situation. Before he describes the plan in detail, however, Swift increases the level of irony
by proposing rationales to support his scheme that are based on sympathy for poor Irish children. He writes that a "great advantage of my scheme" is that it will prevent
"voluntary abortions and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children" (Swift 1641). At this point, Swifts narrator begins to use the language of animal husbandry, referring to a
human mother as a "dam" and describing the demographics of human population increase in exactly the same terms as one might use for cattle (Swift 1641). The irony is on
several levels as the narrator conjures sympathy based on common bonds of humanity, while simultaneously objectifying the Irish by describing them in the same terms that reflect the business of
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