Can you explain Swift's Modest Proposal?

Question

Discuss how Swift addressed the problems and what he suggested the solutions

Answer 1

Swift wrote a funny little piece. The problem of course was the over population of the british isles with poor people's babies. Swift made a modest proposal (understatement) that the solution would be to eat poor people's babies. It would be a delecacy like caviar, and some women would be breeders to pop out more food for the rest of us. Swift gives many ways to cook them too. He says that broiled baby would be delicious.

The reasons he says this is that a poor women could have her baby, then instead of paying to feed the baby, the baby could be sold to pay for the mothers expenses. Of course, Swift wasn't serious, but he wanted to point out that most people did not care about the plight of poor pregnant women and their babies. By sugesting we eat them, he makes an extreme suggestion to open people's eyes.

Hope this helped

Answer 2

I don't really like doing other people's homework, but I've got to answer this one because most people get it wrong. "A Modest Proposal" was a satire of the then new science (if you want to call it that) of economics. You'll have to do the rest yourself. I suggest discussing it with a librarian.

Answer 3

The problems Swift wanted to solve were the intertwined problems of poverty and overpopulation. He addressed the problem with a serious essay. His proposal was that we should eat our parents and take their stuff. Poof! No more overpopulation and no more poverty (for us orphans). That's killing two birds with one stone! Swift's proposal was never put into practice, because people realized that stones just aren't all that rare and there's no reason to be frugal with them.