Enlightenment In A Modest Proposal

Around the 18th century in Western Europe, a new way of thinking and writing emerged. This period, called the Enlightenment, created many works of literature that expressed the ideas society there had at them time. One of the most popular works from the Enlightenment was Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal. He encompassed many of the Enlightenment’s philosophies in both a captivating and correct to the time way. Probably one of the most known ideas of the Enlightenment was a distrust of emotion. Western society at the time had a backlash against emotion and relied entirely on reason and knowledge. This distrust of emotion was used in A Modest Proposal with a lack of pathos in Swift’s argument and a lack of any inkling of feelings the citizens of Ireland may have had. Swift cut off any moral connection by referring to mothers as breeders and children as meat and carcasses. Swift argued that mothers would sell their children for ten shillings, without a second thought, just to feed themselves and keep on breeding (316-317). The distrust of emotion characterized by the Enlightenment was used in A Modest Proposal by eliminating any humanity the citizens may have had.

This was an increased amount of nationalism that places like England embraced. This new idea negatively affected places like Ireland because England began to think it was too good to help them with their financial troubles and that England was better than anywhere else. Swift wrote his work in response to England’s lack of a response to Ireland’s problems. Smith used their views of Ireland being full of female beggars followed by their children (315) by satirically arguing extreme methods to get England to work to change Ireland’s issues. The nation state idea was used in A Modest Proposal in a negative context to push Swift’s message that it is England’s responsibility to help Ireland achieve