Little irish kids, another whi
Little irish kids, another whiIn Jonathan Swift’s essay, “A Modest Proposal”, Swift proposes that the poor should eat their own starving children during a great a famine in Ireland. What would draw Swift into writing to such lengths. When times get hard in Ireland, Swift states that the children would make great meals. The key factor to Swift’s essay that the reader must see that Swift is not literally ordering the poor to cannibalize. Swift acknowledges the fact of the scarcity of food and empathizes with the struggling and famished souls of Ireland through the strange essay. Being of high society Britain, which at the time mothered Ireland, Swift utilizes his work to satirically place much of the blame on England itself. Through his brilliant stating of the fact that the children cost money as well as aid in the drought of food and necessities the reader can get an idea of the suffering on going in Ireland; this brings the reader to see that instead of keeping the children their parents should either eat them or sell them on an open market. By wasting the scarce food in Ireland, the people are killing themselves; thus the children can be consumed saving food and at the same time making food. It is interesting to see how well Swift conveys his view towards the poor in this odd manor. Swift sees how the poor are treated by the affluent who may think that the impoverished are the reason for Ireland’s food problems. In fact, the entire essay is nothing more than sarcastic piece that deeply imbeds the blame upon the rich who he feels might have just as much or even more blame on Ireland’s food problems than the poor ever have. Swift intelligently uses his common sense logic in a strange way to convey his feelings about this predicament. Swift goes to great lengths to intelligently show these feelings. The ways at which Swift camouflages his ideas and thoughts throughout this essay brought many readers at the time to think that he actually wanted Ireland to revert to eating their children. His employment of such literary elements of irony, mix cynicism, and pure contextual reaction from the reader help to map the entire essay.
Thoughout the work, Swift persistently relies upon the use of irony. It is quite apparent that no rational human being would bring themselves to eating the flesh of another, which also adds to the irony of the story. Another interesting point of reflection is the fact that although Swift has children of his own, his are grown and his wife can no longer bear any more. Because of this fact, it is clear that further analysis would show that this work is purely fictional and cannot be taken literally. Many people of the time actually did take Swift’s recollections literally, which brought about much condemnation to Swift as a literary writer. Cynical readers of the time had come to expect such a voice from one...
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