Swift’s satirical vein and interest in the Irish problems is evident in the text “A modest proposal”: his intention is to shock the reader: he writes that thousands of people, especially children, are starving to death. The situation in Ireland in the 18th Century was very bad: in fact extreme poverty, unemployment, lack of morality, high birth rate and taxes(imposed by the English) were destroying the population. The main oppressors of the poor were the landlords, who are compared to cannibals: they have allowed the English control on the island and they have devoured their own wealth. Irish people were forced to live like beggars or thieves. Swift wants to attract attention: he spoke about cannibalism because it was a primitive habit. There was a society of cannibals: William of Orange was the champion of Protestantism, he crashed the Irish under the way of heavy taxations, because he consider them inferior because they didn’t like work(work is almost a sin). According to William of Orange, work is a way to survive. Because of sterile soil in Ireland, English didn’t invest in Ireland, even if they asked for taxations: Ireland lands cost little and so Englishmen bought them and the Irish work these lands but they were underpaid, because labour cost very little in Ireland. Parliament invested a lot of money in industry in England, and not in Ireland, to promote commerce. Moreover, Ireland hasn’t good roads and ports. With William, things goes worst. For these reasons, Swift wants justice and a rebellion against society. Swift, an Anglican priest in Dublin(he has an Anglican parish there, he was a loyal, he didn’t choose his party for his wealth), sees poverty and no way out, because there was absence of spirit and not employment. According to him, the only way is cannibalism. Swift will become poor and he will become mad. He wants to fight indifference by proposing cruel examples. Defoe and Swift are completely different, though they were often compared: Defoe wants to become rich and a recognized(respected) man and he celebrates the power, dignity and greatness of the country, while Swift, by criticizing society, shows its injustice. Also the adjective “modest” of the title is ironic: this is not modest, but it is immoral, crazy, violent, provocative, irrational(wrong), shameful, inhuman, paradoxical and bloody, because it makes you think about the real situation in Ireland. Swift wants an emotional response, he should create horror in readers, because children are treated as animals. Satire(that has predecessor in Horatius, Greek drama, Plauto, Aristofane and Eschilo) is a way to criticize against England, and especially against its Parliament and its landlords. Swift mentions the innominable: he had no limits. At the end of his proposal, he talks about a lot of mothers who are obliged to abort, it becomes an act of desperation. Moreover, he says that children are expensive and landlords could buy them to exploit them as underpaid labour. Children are abundant in Lent, fish is aphrodisiac, Catholics have a lot of children(this is another advantage). He was giving voice to a common feeling: the dislike against Catholic, who considered money a bad thing, while Anglican considered it a gift of God.
Fonte: Pavi92
https://myenglish.blogfree.net/
