A Modest Proposal Reading Response
Jonathon Swift wrote A Modest Proposal in 1729 describing the very real poverty plaguing the Irish people. He lays out their misfortunes clearly and rationally, and argues, by hard-edged economic reasoning as well as from a self-righteous moral stance, for a way to turn this problem into its own solution. He draws attention to the number of starving children in Dublin. Swift goes through great pains to statistically support his proposal citing examples and generalizations of the city's birth rate, even allowing for a considerable margin of error. His proposal, in effect, is to fatten up the city's undernourished children and feed them to Ireland's rich landowners. He cites some American source as saying that children at the age of one make quite the delectable meal. He concludes that selling young children to the meat market would not only solve the problem of overpopulation and unemployment but also appease the exotic tastes of the wealthy and......
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Approximate Word Count: 569
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |