Cannibalism In Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

Hannah McMurtry

English 201 Essay

Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is set in Ireland in the 1600s, a time of heavy poverty and a deplorable hierarchy. In the second paragraph of the narrative, Swift writes that someone should attempt to find a solution to “preserve the nation” and that person will eventually be him (2633). However, his solution, which is to turn the impoverished children into food for society, is eerily presented and coated with an arrogant tone, a tone also seen in Satire against Reason and Mankind by a narrative comparable to A Modest Proposal. Swift manages to bring his readers to see that they can imagine cannibalism as a last resort through comparative reasoning using the children, hypocritical ideals weaving through

He expresses his thoughts egotistically and with evidence that he has gone through each and every calculation—how much the children should weigh, how old they should be when they’re sold, and for how much they should be sold (Swift 2635). “I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection,” Swift brags (2634). The entire scheme, in fact, is presented in an egotistical tone as Swift “humbly” places himself above those in poverty and turns the humans into a saleable commodity, as though he is selling a product in an infomercial, as though the idea is faultless. The arrogant tone is seen in John Wilmot’s Satire against Reason and Mankind. The interlocutor, or clergyman, in the poem praises humankind for being made under God’s image; however, throughout the poem people believe themselves to be the wisest. Wilmot has the speaker criticize them for that, as he says that people are instead foolish and are misleading when it comes to reasoning (2302). The speaker criticizes the people for being vain and pretentious because to him they are acting like they have all the answers. However, in the last part of the poem the interlocutor singles out the speaker for disparaging against humankind. Wilmot is egotistical as he “claims to only write about the different perspectives of reason and the mysterious truths and limits that no man can conceive,” but his only endgame is to gain attention for himself and his stream of thought