My paper. Enjoy.
Audience Analysis
The audience I am addressing consists of college students, generally falling between the ages of 18 and 24. It consists of a mix of males and females, and they are likely to have little to no knowledge of the history surrounding the writing of A Modest Proposal. I expect my audience to have little experience with the type of situation being addressed in the reading, and little knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the publication. Based on this, I would expect my audience to be biased against finding any positive merits to Swift’s proposal.
I have some things in common with my audience, because I am male and a college student. However, with an expected age gap of 10-15 years between myself and my audience I would be unsurprised to find that my audience and I have vastly different worldviews. Ideally, I would like them to see me as someone who can offer a fresh, unique perspective on a topic they likely find distasteful. If I can successfully project the image of a devil’s advocate, perhaps I can help my audience realize that there is always more than one side to any idea, and that not all writing should be taken at face value.
The Economic Stylings of Jonathan Swift
The essay, A Modest Proposal, was written by Jonathan Swift during a time of economic distress and was intended to get people thinking about how to best alleviate this distress. In the beginning of the essay, the author details the numerous citizens of Ireland that do not contribute to their own welfare, let alone the welfare of the country in general. He includes not only the beggars that live on the streets, but also those families that are unable to support their children without help from others. Focusing on the children of these beggars and poor families, Swift begins to look at how best to turn these children into contributing members of the kingdom of Ireland who can “contribute to the feeding, and partly to the cloathing of many thousands” (par. 4).
He first discusses how children cannot be employed in any productive capacity for many years. Then he remarks that “a boy or a girl before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity” (Swift, par. 7), and then the price one would receive is not enough to compensate for the raising of the child. Finally, he turns to the crux of the essay: selling infant children for food. This practice, he maintains, would have several major benefits for Ireland as a whole, and for many of the citizens individually.
The first of these benefits is that, due to their prolific breeding, the number of Papists (Catholics) would be reduced. Since “the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom” (Swift, par. 13), there would be more Catholic infants sold that Protestant. Next, those tenants who have little or no valuables will be able to pay their landlords either by selling children for money or by trading children to the landlord in exchange for the rent. Third, the amount of money normally used to support these children will be available for other uses, and the money used for the sale of the infants will remain in circulation in Ireland rather than going to foreign countries. Another benefit is that those women who have children frequently will be “rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year” (Swift, par. 24). Fifth, the introduction of new dishes using the meat of infants will increase business at taverns and such where there are skilled chefs employed. Finally, Swift maintains that his proposal will result in more men marrying (rather than simply sleeping with the women), and will help ensure that women are better treated by their spouses when pregnant, since the resulting infant will represent an increase in income rather than a financial burden.
Swift then concludes the essay by discussing several other possibilities for improving the lot of Ireland. He rejects each for different reasons. However, he does maintain that he is open to hearing other proposals, “I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to reject any offer, proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual” (Swift, par. 32), and finishes by stating that his proposal is made solely to help the public as he would be unable to profit from it himself.
On a personal level, I feel that Johnathan Swift is a warped and twisted individual. It takes a seriously disturbed mind to come up with the idea of eating children to improve a country, even if it was meant in a satirical manner. However, I am impressed by the logic he used in outlining his proposal.
If you step back from the moral implications of the idea, and examine it from a purely economic perspective, the idea of selling and eating infants to stimulate the economy is nothing less than pure genius. First, his idea would have reduced the number of people in Ireland, and the longer that his solution was in play the greater that reduction would have been. Regardless of the reason for the reduction, less people means less strain on the food sources and on the economy in general. In addition, that reduction of population would have resulted in an increase in the available food for the remaining populace. This provides two net improvements for the nation of Ireland.
Another positive effect of this proposal is that it would stimulate existing industries (such as taverns, butchers, etc…). It would also create new industries such as tanners who specialized in working with infant’s skin, cobblers and creators of other fine accessories using infant skin and hair, and even merchants who could export items made from infant skin and hair. These new industries would provide Ireland with economic growth and increase the wealth of the country.
While these are all positive effects of Swift’s proposal, it is important to realize that Ireland is not alone on the Earth. Thus, the global ramifications should be considered when examining a proposal such as this. Namely, even if Ireland could look past the moral ramifications of this proposal it is unlikely that the rest of the world would be capable of doing the same. Instead, it is likely that some countries would find the practice so abhorrent that they would launch a campaign against Ireland. This could result in a wartime situation. However, the introduction of a war would likely stimulate the Irish economy (as is the case with most wars), and reduce the population of the country as well. Thus, no matter what the outcome of Swift’s proposal, it is likely the end results would have been beneficial for the Irish economy.
References
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” 1729. Project Gutenberg. Ed. David Widger. 27 July 2008. Project Gutenberg. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
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