Author: Mooney, Thomas

Vocabulary & Allusions*

Academic English 4

Barbadoes (Barbados): Easternmost West Indies island, settled by the British in 1627. When Swift published "A Modest Proposal" in 1729, the island's plantation owners used slaves to produce sugar for European consumption. Dublin: The Irish city mentioned in "A Modest Proposal." It is the capital of Ireland. Flay: Remove skin. Formosa: Portuguese name for Taiwan, a Chinese-inhabited island off the southeast coast of China. Mandarin: High-ranking Chinese official. Papist: Roman Catholic. Pretender: James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1766), son of King James II, who ruled England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1685 to 1688. James II was a Catholic, as was his wife, Mary of Modena. After his accession to power, Protestant factions continually maneuvered against him in the background. When Mary became pregnant, these factions worried that the birth of her child would establish a line of Catholic kings. Consequently, they plotted to oust James II and replace him with Dutchman William of Orange, whose mother was the daughter of an English king, Charles I, and whose wife was one of James II's own daughters. When William marched against England, many Protestants in James II's army deserted to William, and James had no choice but to flee to France. After he died in 1701, the French king then proclaimed James II's young son, James Francis Edward Stuart, to be the rightful king of England. The English Parliament then enacted laws designed to prevent seating another Catholic king. Nevertheless, in succeeding years, James Francis repeatedly attempted to regain the throne, and the British eventually nicknamed him the Old Pretender. Psalmanazar, George: French forger and impostor who traveled widely under different personas. In one of his most famous schemes, he pretended to be from Formosa (present-day Taiwan), of which little was known in the Europe of his time. In London, he published a book about Formosa in which he wrote that Formosan law permitted a husband to eat a wife if she committed adultery. Psalmanazar had never visited Formosa; the whole book was made up. Nevertheless, many Englishmen believed what he had written.
* Allusion: a reference to a known work or historical figure in an attempt to complete a significant parallel to the topic of study.

Academic English 4

Source Materials:
Cummings, Michael J. A Modest Proposal: Guide. Circa 2005.
Irony. Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Lynch, Piper, Teaching Satire: Terminology, Tips, Tools. 9 October 2010.
Satire. Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

A Modest Proposal*

Jonathan Swift

A Guide
* Complete 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.”

An Overview:

PURPOSE:
Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal” to call attention to abuses inflicted on Irish Catholics by well-to-do English Protestants. Swift himself was a Protestant, but he was also a native of Ireland, having been born in Dublin of English parents. He believed England was exploiting and oppressing Ireland. Many Irishmen worked farms owned by Englishmen who charged high rents—so high that the Irish were frequently unable to pay them. Consequently, many Irish farming families continually lived on the edge of starvation.
Over the centuries, England gradually gained a foothold in Ireland. In 1541, the parliament in Dublin recognized England’s Henry VIII, a Protestant, as King of Ireland. In spite of repeated uprisings by Irish Catholics, English Protestants acquired more and more estates in Ireland. By 1703, they owned all but ten percent of the land. Meanwhile, legislation was enacted that severely limited the rights of the Irish to hold government office, purchase real estate, get an education, and advance themselves in other ways. As a result, many Irish fled to foreign lands, including America. Most of those who remained in Ireland lived in poverty, facing disease, starvation, and prejudice. It was this Ireland—an Ireland of the tyrannized and the downtrodden—that Jonathan Swift attempted to focus attention on in “A Modest Proposal” in 1720.
In “A Modest Proposal,” Swift satirizes the English landlords with outrageous humor, proposing that Irish infants be sold as food at age one, when they are plump and healthy, to give the Irish a new source of income and the English a new food product to bolster their economy and eliminate a social problem. He says his proposal, if adopted, would also result in a reduction in the number of Catholics in Ireland, since most Irish infants—almost all of whom were baptized Catholic—would end up in stews and other dishes instead of growing up to go to Catholic churches.

SATIRE:
Satire: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of: plays, novels, films, etc.
Juvenalian: dark and bitter form of satire.
Horatian: light and humorous form of satire.
Irony: The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
As a Juvenalian satire, the dominant figure of speech in "A Modest Proposal" is verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says the opposite of what he means. Swift's masterly use of this device makes his main argument—that the Irish deserve better treatment from the English—powerful and dreadfully amusing. For example, to point out that the Irish should not be treated like animals, Swift compares them to animals, as in this example: "I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs." Also, to point out that disease, famine, and substandard living conditions threaten to kill great numbers of Irish, Swift cheers their predicament as a positive development .
Format/Tone: The format of the work is an essay, thus allowing Swift to seem more legitimate as an author. Furthermore, Swift adopts the role of an economic planner and pamphleteer (read: one who distributes pamphlets) in an attempt to manage the authenticity of the proposal using a specific voice and establishing tone.
THEMES:
Exploitation of the Downtrodden: Beneath Swift’s audacious satire is a serious theme: that English overlords are shamelessly exploiting and oppressing the impoverished people of Ireland through unfair laws, high rents charged by absentee landlords, and other injustices.
Prejudice: At the time of the publication of "A Modest Proposal," many British Protestants disdained Roman Catholics--especially Irish Catholics--and enacted laws limiting their ability to thrive and prosper.
Irish Inaction: Swift's satirical language also chides the Irish themselves for not acting with firm resolve to improve their lot (read: situation in life).
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Jonathan Swift was born on November 30, 1667, in Dublin, Ireland. His father—an Englishman who had moved to Ireland—died earlier that year. Receiving financial assistance from relatives, Swift attended a good school for his basic education and graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 1686. He lived off and on in England, became an Anglican clergyman, and eventually was appointed dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, although he had lobbied for a position in England. His writing—especially his satires—made him one of the most prominent citizens in Great Britain. worked for a time on behalf of Tory causes. His most famous work is Gulliver's Travels, a book of satire on politics and society in general. Swift died in Dublin on October 19, 1745.