A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal

By reading Jonathan Swift ‘A Modest Proposal’ walking and travelling through the street, roads and cabin doors of Ireland, all you can see is how crowded it is by female beggars and their children. He talks about how they beg instead of working which gives a bad example to their infants and when they grow up they become thieves because they find it easier than to work. Or some of them don’t even make it in life they die from diseases, hunger and care.

Jonathan Swift says ‘I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, 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 ...’ His proposal on the female beggars with loads of children, who they don’t really take care of them who will end up dying at early age anyway either from hunger, diseases or simply murdered should be sold to eat. Jonathan Swift proposes that these children are sold to the upper class people who will eat them as he states above. Jonathan Swift states everyone would benefit from this proposal starting from beggars to richer class. He sees it as the female beggars will earn some money for growing and making the children healthier. Swift states by doing this it will also be “relieving the poor” as they will have fewer children to look after and have some sort of income to their families.

Seeing this proposal from the upper class family’s point of view is that they can pay for something to be seasoned for a year in this case young child to be healthy, grown and ready to eat. Jonathan Swift sees this as “some pleasure to the rich” because they can afford it and why not have it if they have money for it.

Jonathan Swift believes by making this proposal this would benefit the country by easing off the amount of thieves and beggars that are produced by careless poor families which all they do is breed. Swift also believed this would make Ireland a

better country. He states that eating human flesh could be normal and could be quite beneficial. Swift says his proposal is not a personal interest; he does it for the public good of his country.

Jonathan Swift is not the only to come out with this type of proposal to eat human flesh. Other cultures such as Buddhism say it is good to eat the flesh of the dead. Also many countries still practice cannibalism as part of their rituals and see it as normal thing to do. This means there is still people out there that could disagree on Swifts’ proposal on making the country better by eating young children.

Seeing this from another point of view which eating human flesh could be seen as not civilised and normal would disagree with Jonathan Swifts Proposal. In the story book Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe manages to civilise Friday from turning him to a normal person from a cannibal. No matter how hungry they get they would not eat each other because it is not seen as a good thing to do.

Reading Jonathan Swift a Modest Proposal my opinion on eating young children is I think that it shouldn’t be happening no matter what these children turn out to be, everyone deserves a better a chance. The only people to be blamed are the parents of these young children for bringing them into this life and not caring about them and when they should have brought them up with some sort of disciplinary. Also I think eating human flesh is very wrong as only God can give and take life. I strongly disagree with Swift proposal as it is not civilised to eat young children no matter if you can afford or not. My proposal would be to totally different because I would suggest that the children are taken care of by the country if the parents can’t. Or simply not allowing the have more than two children per family if they cannot manage to look after their self let along their children.