Sir, the Baby is Served

If Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a modest proposal, I don’t think I understand the word modest anymore. Of course I’m being ironic, to go with the theme. Quite frankly, though I understand that this is a reputable satire essay, I’m not exactly thrilled with all the gruesome imageries depicted. But still one cannot deny the power of Swift’s words in terms of attacking the two groups of people in his essay: the English government and the Irish people themselves. The full title “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” clearly states the contents and purpose of the essay as well as establishing the insensitive, straight-faced tone that makes the essay even more satirical.

Swift proposes that the children of poor people should be fatten up and then fed to the rich. They should be sold into meat markets at the age of one, when their meat is the most fresh, as a way to solve the problems of unemployment and overpopulation and sparing the poor parents the expense of child-rearing. He extensively uses understatement such as parents wouldn’t care if their children would be eaten and eating children would save pig’s life. He further suggests the beneficial outcomes of his proposal by saying that eating babies would improve the culinary experience of the rich people. Here he uses techniques like overstatement with all the different cooking methods, and irony with the idea of serving children at weddings and christening. Talk about sending shivers down my spine!