A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal takes place in Ireland where poverty has stroke the country hard and left a lot of children and their mothers to become beggars on the street. Swift takes a humorous approach as he comes up with the most ridiculous proposal, to make meat of the children who are beggars in the society. The poem begins displaying the title and then stating, "for preventing the children of poor people in ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to public"(1199) The tone is immediately set to sarcasm by the word choice swift uses to state his argument. By phrasing the sentence in such a humorous way it becomes clear that his proposal is not to be taken very seriously, although I am conflicted on if Swift did take the matter of poverty seriously or not. As Swift goes more in depth in his proposal he argues "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." (1201) Swift concludes that children are not needed in this day in age for marriage, targeting both genders stating that only one male is needed to provide for four females, thus implying that one on one relationships are not needed and the boy beggars are a "one a dozen"in a sense. By the end of the poem however Swift states that he has "no personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work other, having no other motivate than the public good of my country." (1205) Thus my question has been answer that while Swifts proposal is all a joke, to get Irelands attention to the actual issue of poverty that is damaging the country. However I am curious if people found Swifts proposal to be serious rather than an attempt to draw attention to the main issue of the economic crisis in Ireland. Also, as disgusting as his method is, is there a significance for going so dramatic to use children as a way to solve an issue, if so what is it?