Modest Proposal Essays - Pamphlets, Anglo-Irish People,

Modest Proposal Criticisms in Jonathan Swift's ?A Modest Proposal' A satire is a literary work in which human foolishness and vice are criticized. Satire employs humor and wit to ridicule human institutions or humanity itself, in order that they might be remodeled or improved (Random House). A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift is a prime example of a satire. Throughout the piece it is difficult to know exactly whom and what Swift is criticizing. This is because Swift criticizes three groups of people and uses metaphors to make the satire work. Swift ridicules the English for economically oppressing the Irish, the Irish for being passive and allowing the English to oppress them, and the reader of the piece for representing all the wrong doings in society. Many of the images that Swift paints for the reader are images that he witnessed firsthand while he was in Ireland. He was able to feel what the people were going through and he put that feeling into his work. The main group of people that Jonathan Swift indicts is the English. Swift blames the English for creating the environment that the Irish are living in. He witnessed the Irish people living in poverty while their absentee landlords were acquiring great wealth. "The poor tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown" (Swift). Swift illustrates how the British politicians were making laws, to govern the Irish, from afar. Rather than directly accusing the English of economically oppressing the Irish, Swift implies it. He uses metaphors to convey his thoughts. The entire and significantly horrible idea of cannibalism is a metaphor that Swift uses. The British felt that the laws that they were passing were good and just laws, when in actuality all they were doing was making the landlords gain more wealth. "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for Landlords; who, as they have already devoured most of the Parents, seem to have the best Title to the Children" (Swift). This is an example of the distancing effect that Swift puts on the metaphor. He distances the reader from the actual feelings that he should be experiencing. The vocabulary that Swift employees, forces the reader to focus on economic opportunities rather than the necessities of the poor. In the same way that Swift felt the English had been doing all along. Using the word "devoured" is very powerful and it goes beyond the ordinary language associated with economics. It demands that the reader interpret the text in the manner that Swift has decided he should. The cruelty of the text continues on throughout the quote. This reader is shocked by the violence that is created by the economic situation. It makes the landlords appear as if they are actually devouring their tenants rather than protecting them. By using language Swift is able to go a step further and create double meanings out of the words. For example in the last quote from the proposal, the word "dear" can be taken two ways. The first meaning, as it appears, a precious thing. The second meaning of the word dear can be taken as a key to the value of money, something the English keep taking from the Irish. By selling the children, economic gains can be made to profit the English and Irish alike. Swift choose his word carefully in order to convey what he witnessed in Ireland. The English were devouring the Irish and sending them into devastating depths of poverty. The second party that Swift criticizes is the Irish. By saying that the Irish can sell their children on the market for money implies two things: One that the English have oppressed them beyond a limit of rationality and two that the Irish are letting the English take advantage of them. Swift paints the Irish as a group of pushovers that would sell their children for money rather than stand up for their rights. Swift makes the point that the Irish have been so harmed by the laws that they take more care in their livestock than their families. Swift indicts the Irish when he says that if the children were put to market, men would treat wives with more respect and child would have better care. "We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the