A Modest Proposal

An essay on satirical diction of Jonathan Swift’s most famous

pamphlet

by Pavlína Hrušková

October 25, 2010

 The subject of this essay is a short analysis of Swift’s pamphlet A Modest

Proposal in order to demonstrate the satirical message of Swift’s work. In the essay I

name and give some examples of different means that make the work satirical and

that I have found in the text of this pamphlet.

As introduction, let me briefly give the contents of the pamphlet: Swift criticizes

the situation in Ireland where, on the one hand, is a lot of beggars and needy people

who are not able to obtain jobs to earn their living or to pay rent and, on the other

hand, where there is a profligate minority of the wealthy and landlords who keep on

impoverishing the ordinary people. He stands up against the economy of the

kingdom that does not manage to arrange work opportunities for Irish and against

politicians who are not able to defy the rule of England. The whole pamphlet is an

example of irony. The author (the proposer) offers a plan to improve this situation by

the liability of the poor and the beggars to sell their one-year-olds for meat. In this

way, i.a., the number of inhabitants – especially those, of course, who are poor or

most likely going to become beggars or thieves later – would reduce; by the specific

reasoning the author also comes to the conclusion that the rate of Roman Catholics

within the Irish population would get lower; and this would also mean some income

for the poor Irish. The author names more advantages of his proposal, some of them

will be mentioned later.

The text of the Proposal seems highly sophisticated. The author describes

different aspects of his plan in a scholarly manner and makes well-thoughtout

statistical analysis. This tone together with the absurdity of the contents is a clear

evidence of parody. Simultaneously he presents himself, though indirectly, as a

saviour of the nation, someone who “would deserve so well of the public as to have

his statue set up” (Swift 52). This very immodest self presentation ironically clashes

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firstly with the title of the Proposal and secondly it also contrasts sharply with the

author’s humbleness which is used quite often in the text.

Besides the irony which sounds out of the whole text, we can also find there

also lots of ironic particulars: i.e. when the author calculates the price of a toddler as

food and comes to 10s. per a body, he says that “no gentleman” would be sorry to

pay the sum for such a good nutritive meat; similarly I found in other paragraphs this

“gentleman” title for the landlords and the wealthy. I suppose that Swift in general

does not consider this sort of people as gentlemen. In a similar way, to the contrary

though, the author uses the expressions “papists” or “popish” for Catholics. Swift

supposedly places these misnames ironically to the author’s mouth in the context of

then anti-catholic tendencies among the pro-English population.

Another means which makes the work satirical is sarcasm. Swift uses it quite

frequently. On each page of the pamphlet we can find some sarcastic allusions. He

sarcastically attacks especially the manner of landlords and the wealthy. This

tendency culminates at the end of the pamphlet where the author names other but

“vain, idle and visionary” (Swift 58) plans for helping the situation of the kingdom. In

this way Swift bitingly remarks habits of rich Irish, their prodigality, idleness, entire

lack of patriotism, their malice, dishonesty, graspingness, unwillingness to produce

and offer local ware within the country instead of importing lots of goods, their lack of

mercy or only indulgence, etc. This manner and habits is a great obstacle to

changing something. Any other realistic proposal would mean unpopular

arrangements for which there is only small willingness to accept. The author’s plan is

on the other hand “something solid and real, of no expense and little trouble” (Swift

58).

Another sarcastic attack on the landlords is a remark in above mentioned

paragraph with the calculation of the price of a carcass and with options of its use in

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the cuisine. Such kind of an investment and reasonable handling with it could teach

the landlords to manage the entrusted property and land better so they could become

popular with their tenants.

At the beginning of the Proposal when the author introduces his plan he

speaks about one of its benefit – it could stop intended abortions and killing of

illegitimate newborn babies. People feel pity for this kind of situations: these

miserable incidents “move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast”

(Swift 53). This way Swift sarcastically describes how in fact quite rational decisions

of desperate women can develop pity, at the other side the begging and pauperized

children can develop only wrath and annoyance and the demand “to ease the nation

of so grievous an encumbrance” (Swift 56). It is also possible to understand this

paragraph as irony: on the one hand, the author suggests selling toddlers as food

and on the other hand he speaks about pity for unborn or killed babies. We can find a

similarity in the section where we read about a proposal of the author’s acquaintance

who suggests supplying the lack of huntable deer in Irish woods with children

between 12 and 14 years old. The author rejects this idea because some people

could consider this too cruel.

In another paragraph he sarcastically mentions the rich men’s habit of keeping

mistresses. It would be certainly more useful instead of parasitization of these ladies

to sell them out for meat. They are generally very well nourished and chubby, though

they are without any income.

We can find another instance of sarcasm at the end of the pamphlet where the

author gives more details on his proposal’s advantages: one of the benefits would be

nicer behavior of mothers to their babies, and husbands would nicely care for their

pregnant wives as well.

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 The last means I can mention in this essay are the metaphor and comparison.

Some of the comparisons found in the pamphlet could be qualified as black humor in

nowadays language. E.g. in already mentioned passage where the author figures out

how many children should be sold for meat and how many should be bred, he says

that from all the children kept for breeding should only the 1/4 of males be enough

and remarks that it is “more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine” (Swift 54).

Another quite black humor observation can be found when the author speaks, as

mentioned above, about a benefit of his proposal that is based on the increasing of

tenderness of mothers to their babies and husbands to their pregnant wives. He says

that mothers would do this with the awareness of “a settlement for life to the poor

babes, provided in some sort by the public” (Swift 57); the husbands would be nice to

their pregnant wives the same way as they are “fond of their mares in foal, their cows

in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow” (Swift 57). In another also already

mentioned section he says that landlords would not have any problem to buy the

baby meat, because “as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to

have the best title to the children” (Swift 54). At the close of the text when the author

lists the advantages he says that the proposal is meant only for Ireland. It is

concerned a commodity which cannot be exported as this meat does not last in salt

for longer time, but he remarks that he “could name a country which would be glad to

eat up our whole nation without it” (Swift 58).

In this essay I analyzed Swift’s pamphlet A Modest Proposal in order to

demonstrate how the diction of the pamphlet makes this text satirical. I managed to

find examples of several different satirical means – I identified irony, sarcasm,

metaphor and a humorous comparison. Due to the combination of the absurd

contents of the pamphlet together with the sophisticated language and tone I also

identified the whole pamphlet as a parody. What also makes this pamphlet a great

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satire is that Swift does not only criticize the situation by lampooning but he also

gives ideas for improving the status. All these aspects together with his mastery of

using the language and his ingenious ideas make this work exceptional and it is no

wonder that it is by now considered as one of the best satire ever.

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Works Cited

Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works. New York: Dover

Publications, Inc., 1996

Other References

Swift, Jonathan. Výbor z díla. Praha: SNKLHU, 1953

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