In a Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, a solution to the burgeoning population of poor citizens and their children in Ireland is sought by the author. Swift begins by stating his intentions of “making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth” by aiding in both the parents who cannot support them, and the beggar children who commonly “pick up a livelihood of stealing.” Swifts goals seem reasonable, even valiant, until he digresses into the means to which he thinks Ireland’s poverty problem can be solved. Swifts proposal, boiled down, is to fatten famished children and in turn feed them to Ireland’s upper classes. He proposes a detailed plan to sell the children at market, and even how they can be prepared. Reinforcing the