Jonathan Swift's 1729 satirical pamphlet 'A Modest Proposal' suggests that poor Irish children be fattened and sold as food to address poverty and overpopulation. The work critiques the inhumanity of economic rationalism and highlights the exploitation of Ireland by England through its absurd and ironic conclusion. This masterful satire employs a blend of rational analysis and grotesque humor to expose societal issues, making its title synonymous with outrageous solutions to complex problems.

1. “A MODEST PROPOSAL” (1729)
JONATHAN SWIFT

2. JONATHAN SWIFT (1667–1745)
OUTSTANDING ENGLISH SATIRIST
Birth Date: November 30,
1667
Place of Birth: Dublin,
Ireland
Education: University of
Oxford, Trinity College
Death Date: October 19, 1745
Notable works: A Tale of a
Tub (1704), The Battle of the
Books (1704), Gulliver's
Travels (1726-1727, 1735),
A Modest Proposal (1729)

3. DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS
The proposal is prophetic of the 19th-century
economist who, on hearing of the number
who had died in the Irish Potato Famine,
remarked sadly that it was not enough. Swift
exposes the inhumanity of emerging forms of
rational simplification by simplifying them
even further. “A Modest Proposal” solves a
human problem by an economic calculus
which ignores human love and treats the
poor as cattle.

4. DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children
of Poor People in Ireland, from Being a Burden
to Their Parents or Country; and for Making
Them Beneficial to the Publick (1729) is a
satirical pamphlet by Swift in which he suggests
that the children of the poor should be fattened
to feed the rich, an offer he describes as
'innocent, cheap, easy and effectual'.
“A Modest Proposal” (1729) is a masterpiece of
comic incongruity, with its suave blend of
rational deliberation and savage conclusion.

5. DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS
Swift believed that ‘we need religion as we
need our dinner, wickedness makes
Christianity indispensable and there’s an
end of it.’ A Modest Proposal, for
preventing the children of poor people in
Ireland from being a burden to their
parents or country, and for making them
beneficial to the public proposes that
surplus children be eaten.
In A Modest Proposal, Swift shows curious
combination of bitterness and compassion
as though his misanthropy were based on
frustrated love.

6. DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS
Presented in the guise of an economic
treatise, the essay proposes that the country
ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering
the children of the Irish poor and selling them
as food to wealthy English landlords. Swift’s
proposal is a savage comment on England’s
legal and economic exploitation of Ireland.
The essay is a masterpiece of satire, with a
blend of rational deliberation and unthinkable
conclusion, and its title has come to
symbolize any proposition to solve a problem
with an effective but outrageous cure.

7. DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS
It is a grimly ironic letter of advice in which a
public-spirited citizen suggests that Ireland’s
overpopulation and dire economic conditions
could be alleviated if the babies of poor Irish
parents were sold as edible delicacies to be
eaten by the rich. It is one of his most savage
and powerful tracts, a masterpiece of ironic
logic.
His tone and manner varied from direct factual
presentation to exhortation, humour, and bitter
irony in this proposal.