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A Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

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In 1729, Ireland faced many complications. “A Modest Proposal” was published in 1729 in response to the worsening conditions in Ireland. Ireland was controlled by England and had no say in affairs. They faced famine, fuel shortages, emigration, and being heavily taxed. (sparknotes) Landlords were paid from the produce of the land, which workers could hardly afford. (universalteacher) It was a poor country that was overpopulated with poverty and homelessness. Crop failures, high unemployment, rising prices, and trade restrictions imposed by the British government all caused the poverty to increase. In the essay “A Modest Proposal” Jonathon Swift challenges the status quo of the time and place in which it was written by suggesting unheard of ideas about the children of Ireland to show how bad the conditions truly were in that time. Swift challenges the status quo by suggesting selling children in Ireland. Swift states in the essay that children above twelve years old would not be worth more than three pounds. Children above the age of twelve would not be worth anything to sell because they cannot accommodate to the parents or kingdom. Swift wonders the actual value of the children at that age and soon sees they wouldn’t be the best to sell. He believed that younger children would be the best to sell. …show more content…

He says that a baby that is well nursed at the age of one would be the best to eat. Flesh of a fourteen year old boy is too lean to eat he claims. Girls at the age of fourteen might soon become breeders of infants and raise the infants until the age of one. Swift says that a well nursed baby will be the most wholesome food, no matter the way they are cooked. He jokes with sarcasm that a baby could make a well rounded meal for a group of people in this time. Swift proposed all these ideas, yet he does not want to be liable for an

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