Swifts Proposal

In Jonathon Swifts “A Modest Proposal, Swift main propose is to have a solution to poverty. Throughout the essay Swift, along with the narrator that he creates uses irony to show to reader that we always have solution. Swift in his essay uses irony. Irony occurs between tone and content. Swift argues throughout his essay that we should do something about poverty rather than just ignoring it. The narrator’s purpose is to make everyone aware of poverty and act up on it. Swift begins his proposal with an illustration with the problems in Ireland.

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbados.

This quote by the narrator highlights the problems of Ireland. The narrator implies that in Ireland that the beggars pollute the beauty of the “great” town of Ireland and mirrors a bad image. Another purpose is that Swift wants the outrage to be directed at the landowner’s conditions in Ireland that are inhuman. Swift here is presenting the landowners as villains. “I grant this food will be somewhat dear and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the bars title to children.”
The narrator explains to the reader the very sad and emotional subject that England and Ireland’s landowners have made the poor suffer and has taken the small amount of the money they had. The narrator uses sarcasm when he says instead of doing an act like abortion why don’t we eat the baby’s instead isn’t killing the same? The narrator then proposes his idea that he has a solution for the babies whose parents cannot supply them with love or simply just don’t seem that they can afford them. The reader identifies Swift when he uses sarcasm when he talks about irony. Swift rarely uses his own self in his essay. The narrator that he creates is mostly the one that is stating his theories and opinions throughout the essay. However, Swift reveals himself very rarely through his essay. It is obvious that Swift is using sarcasm when he says that we should eat the baby’s he reveals to the audience that it is not him through sarcasm. He also uses sarcasm when he says:

Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them for fear of a miscarriage.

Jonathon Swifts though may seem ridiculous in some parts of his essay he pin points the problems of Ireland through humor and the fact that swift can use humor for deep purpose makes himself an astonishing writer.