"that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most
delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked,
or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie,
or a ragoust" I was quite appalled when I read this statement from A Modest Proposal about how children were going to be used for food. I had no idea this was what A Modest Proposal was going to be about when I read the first couple lines. I originally thought that it was going to discuss the financial burden those faced during these times and how they had to bed for food. He talks about the children as if they were just "items" and determines how each of the benefit him and the city. He proposes that out of the 120,000 Irish children born each year, "humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the
hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand
may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which
is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is,
that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not
much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to
serve four females." A Modest Proposal openly discussed how one individual saw those, mostly female mothers, suffering from hunger and sees how these mothers "are forced to employ all their time" panhandling for food. Swift eventually develops this proposal to end hunger in the city he is from. I was very surprised to discover what exactly he was going to propose to end hunger, and that was to eat the infants. He described it as an "advantage" to certain mothers "that it will
prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women
murdering their bastard children, alas!" After reading this, this is a very strange and messed up way to end hunger in a country or city. This proposal that Swift writes is very sarcastic way of helping the overpopulated country of Ireland but the people take his proposal literally and eat their children or sell them. These parents seem very desperate. Sunday, February 9, 2014
A Modest Proposal
"that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most
delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked,
or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie,
or a ragoust" I was quite appalled when I read this statement from A Modest Proposal about how children were going to be used for food. I had no idea this was what A Modest Proposal was going to be about when I read the first couple lines. I originally thought that it was going to discuss the financial burden those faced during these times and how they had to bed for food. He talks about the children as if they were just "items" and determines how each of the benefit him and the city. He proposes that out of the 120,000 Irish children born each year, "humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the
hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand
may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which
is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is,
that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not
much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to
serve four females." A Modest Proposal openly discussed how one individual saw those, mostly female mothers, suffering from hunger and sees how these mothers "are forced to employ all their time" panhandling for food. Swift eventually develops this proposal to end hunger in the city he is from. I was very surprised to discover what exactly he was going to propose to end hunger, and that was to eat the infants. He described it as an "advantage" to certain mothers "that it will
prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women
murdering their bastard children, alas!" After reading this, this is a very strange and messed up way to end hunger in a country or city. This proposal that Swift writes is very sarcastic way of helping the overpopulated country of Ireland but the people take his proposal literally and eat their children or sell them. These parents seem very desperate. 
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I don't think that the parents go along with this. Though they may share Swift's anger about how they are exploited...
ReplyDeleteI too had no idea what this was going to be about.. Jonathan Swift has quite the imagination
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