Question

On Jonathan Swift “A Modest Proposal” document, what can this document tell us about life in the industrializing cities of England? What sort of people are the urban poor according to Swift?

Answer 1

The essay by Jonathan Swift "A Modest Proposal" was a satirical essay which has been meant to highlight the problems of rich English people and poor Irish people. The poor Irish people sell out their children as food to rich English landlords. The essay has been written in a satirical manner which criticizes the ideas of others.

This document tells us the life of a poor Irish people with more children; they need to spend all their time to feed their own family with more people. As a result, they sell their children to rich English landlords. But, here, the rate of the child is measured with the healthy nature of a child that is if a child is healthy and plump, rate of the child is more and if the child is thin and puny, the rate of the child is very less. So, as poor parents, getting the food itself is a tough thing, but they need to maintain a good child to sell it out to overcome their financial problem and also the child should not be more than one year old, so, that they can sell it with a reasonable price.

Jonathan Swift argues that the selling of children is like selling them in a meat market. We should not allow it further for the goodness of the society. His point would also help to resolve the issues behind unemployment and overpopulation in Ireland.

According to Swift, the urban poor is the Irish people who stay in the poverty line, had a much struggle to survive in the society. He also comments that husbands of Irish family may treat their wives with more respect too because of their child bearing capacity. According to Swift, the urban poor is the Irish people who are homeless, living in the urban areas and selling their own child as a product in the market to English landlords for a good price. He also targets the politicians who are designing the projects with the perception of poor people and are much beneficial to the rich one only and not to the poor.