The Modest Proposal By Jonathan Swift

In The modest proposal, The author Jonathan Swift gives his idea on how to eliminate poverty-stricken children in Ireland. His big scheme is that the poor children should be taken, fattened up, and used as a food supply for the wealthy. The benefits of using a child for a resource should not outweigh the ethics and rules of society. In the writing the author even begins to go into how he would prepare the kids for meals and ways he believes their taste would best benefit society. Swift believes that the Children in Poverty portrays a negative image on their society. Even though the idea of cooking children for the wealthy seems very unorthodox, the author does tend to create valid points on how it would be beneficial to society. Poverty numbers

He does not enjoy seeing beggars and other poor families sitting around in the streets appearing all torn up and poor. “It is a melancholy Object to those, who walk through this great Town, 1 or travel in the Country, when they see the Streets, the Roads, and Cabbin-Doors, crowded with Beggars…” (Swift 1). The mothers are mothers that beg in fear. They fear for their children’s lives and fear for their futures in a cruel unforgiving world. The mothers have no option but to cry, steal, and beg for a living. “...to beg sustenance for their helpless infants…” (Swift 1). To see that a mother must go through so much just to provide simple nutrients for a child is what breaks the human heart. She is giving up her opportunity for food and health to be sure that her children receive the nutrition they need to be

For someone with so much knowledge of such an obscure topic is how someone could tell he is serious about his whole idea. “I believe no Gentleman would repine to give Ten Shillings for the Carcass of a good fat Child, which, as I have said will make four Dishes of excellent Nutritive Meat, when he hath only some particular friend, or his own Family to Dine with him”(Swift 2). Swift has already stated a guaranteed profit margin for a completely new market that has no previous market. He is the pioneer of a new market and a new idea that he guarantees will help out the country as a whole. Along with money and other profits to worry about, Swift had concerns about the numbers of women able t0 go through labor. He knew that unless he had a supply to children this plan was nothing but a mere fantasy and he would never see it to its full completion. “...may be about two hundred thousand Couple whose Wives are breeders, from which number I Substract thirty Thousand Couples, who are able to maintain their own Children…” (Swift 2). He is so passionate about his idea that he has gone through and done the math to figure out how many people actually would be able to provide to this cause and were in the situation to provide children for his proposal. Having such a bizarre idea as Swift did means you persuade, you create numbers, and you do anything possible to make the idea conclusive. Throughout the reading