Swift's Commentary on Early Eighteenth-Century Ireland

        Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is a piece of satirical writing commenting on the influence England had on Ireland in the early eighteenth century.  During the time Swift was writing, religious and economic difficulties had caused Ireland to become a “virtual colony” of England (Baker).  The Irish were miserable and penniless.  Swift writes that “It is a melancholy object to walk through this great town…when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and all importuning every passenger for an alms” (Swift 2633).  Living conditions were terrible for nearly everyone outside of the upper class. 

        Swift uses satire in A Modest Proposal as a way to condemn the control that England had over Ireland and the policies they had put into place that caused so much suffering for the people living there.  Swift flipped England’s stereotype of the Irish being cannibals in order to incriminate the English themselves (Zeenat 165).  Swift writes that the babies they will eat “will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for the landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children” (Swift 2635).  He is implying that England is, in fact, engaging in cannibalism as it slowly consumes and destroys the Irish. 

        In the end, Swift’s writing had a great impact on the people involved in this turmoil in Ireland.  An earlier publication of Swift’s entiProposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture caused an “…extraordinary flowering of economic publications in Ireland….after two decades of near silence on the subject” (Zeenat 162).  Likewise, A Modest Proposal eventually achieved Swift’s goal of addressing the English while also encouraging the people of Ireland to try and improve their lives. 

tled

Works Cited:

Baker, Lyman A. "Conditions in Early Eighteenth-Century Ireland." Kansas State University, 28 Mar 1999. Web. 24 Jan 2016.

Swift, Jonathan. "A Modest Proposal." The Norton Anthology English Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2012. 2633-2639. Print.

Zeenat, Afrin. "Writing Irish Nationhood: Jonathan Swift’s Coming to Terms with his Birthplace." Nebula 6.2 (2009): 19. Print.