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Eating Babies Proposal Effect: An Analysis of a Modest Proposal

Let me paint you a picture, you’re waiting for your searched video to play, and you come

to an ad. This ad is trying to sell you a small product like soap or toothpaste, but the speaker in

this ad is humorous, well dressed, and is relatable, which really makes people want to buy from

him. The speaker in a way is approachable and welcoming to listen to. This ad was using

rhetoric, which can be referred to as the “art of arguing.” One very popular and well-known

piece of rhetoric is “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From being a

Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Publick” better

known as the “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift. Swift has Irish origins but serves the

queen of England. With facing poverty, Swift noticed that England is doing nothing to help

Ireland to get out of poverty. Swift who is angry with England’s lack of action, decides to write

an essay that succeeds under Restoration Satire. Kate Seago, Director of Acquisitions;

Anthropology and Classical Academic Liaison of the University of Kentucky, pronounces that

Restoration Satire is “biting wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose vice or folly,” which refers to

England as the targeted audience (Seago 11). Swift proposes an idea to take care of the poverty

issue. He proposes to sell babies and make them into food. Swift explains that there is economic

growth, and profit that comes from putting 1–2-year-old infants on the market. He even adds

about also reducing abortions. In talking about the benefits, Swift also talks about how to prepare

and eat the babies, even seeing profit in their skin. Seago introduces this term based on the time

and to be express how important the targeted audience is when it comes to this satire. To add to

Seago’s introduction into restoration satire, Swift writes his proposal as to make fun at England.

He creates the theme that if no one going to propose any ideas then here is an idea. As horrible as

it seems, an idea is an idea. It’s been 292 years, since the paper was anonymously published, and
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it’s still being read today. This legacy questions Swift usage of rhetoric in effectively

communicating with his entire audience. Through a close examination of Swift’s essay: Modest

Proposal, the paper is presented to be very effective in communicating his purpose to the

audience by its attention to its setting, audience, and overall purpose.

First, it’s important to understand what satire is and its usage. Satire is a form of rhetoric

Kelly J. Mays, affiliated with the University of Nevada, wrote in the book “The Norton

Introduction to Literature” which hammers satire to be “a literary work—whether fiction, poetry,

or drama—that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure,” (Mays 6). Though Mays’

definition of satire does underline the primary body of the word, she fails to point out the

purpose of satire. Satire is more than a joke on people. It becomes just a funny line about people

if the piece doesn’t have any directions. This idea means your work makes fun of humans based

on a stance. In the Modest Proposal, Swift targeted England, but it backfired. After the proposal,

outsiders used satire to make fun of the Irishman saying that they eat babies, and they are

savages. Another use of rhetoric is seen when three professors’ team up and a create an article

regarding the environment. The three men backgrounds come into literature and the

environment. William Ripple is a Distinguished Professor of Ecology; Richardson Chair;

Director, Trophic Cascades Program from Oregon State University. Erik Meijaard is Honorary

Professor of Conservation Science of the University of Kent. Finally, Thomas Newsome is a

senior lecturer from the University of Sydney and holds a position between the Department of

Forest Ecosystem and society at Oregon State University. In an article, “Saving the World with

Satire: A response to Chapron et al,” these men were reacting to Charon’s message that the Earth

is not going to last and to give up hope. Ripple et al. discussed that we could act now and save
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the Earth, but the people need to pay attention. This response is where they discuss the use of

satire being a tool to help the environment tragedy. Ripple et al. deliberates:

The use of satire to compel readers to ponder societal issues is well entrenched in comic

strips. But in scientific publications, the use of satire to call attention to conservation

challenges has had a limited appearance. Such limited uptake may reflect the formal

nature of the scientific process (Ripple 483).

Ripple does a good job describing their direction when it comes to satire reaching the people.

Making fun of them is just to get the in like a good hook in an essay. To add to what Ripple, and

the others were discussing, the use of satire is to get the attention and for the audience to reflect

on how they see the world or how you feel. In their example, these men want people to see that

the world is dying, and there needs to be more attention on the issue at hand. Satire isn’t just

about making fun of people, it is attacking the soul of the audience and showing them a different

world. Ireland suffering from a severe case of poverty. The people need to react.

As mentioned before, Ireland is suffering from a severe case of poverty. There is an

enormous issue with overpopulation, plus with the little amount of money everyone is receiving,

they are falling into a hole that they will be unable to escape. Someday, they are going to be

faced with a humongous famine known as the Irish Potato Famine. Swift, seeing his homeland

be put on a path of defeat and his new land isn’t helping, is what pushes Swift into this

proposition. The setting is crucial in the satire to have its full strength. Seago savors that, “the

reader is acquainted with contemporary events and people. … can be appreciated with little

knowledge of the period, while others … require some knowledge of the events of the time [for]

them to be appreciated” which it preserves the impact of the setting and period to the

effectiveness of the satirical piece (Seago 12). Seago tries to portray that with knowing the
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background of the author’s life, can be appreciated due to its bit of wisdom that the author wants

to give to their readers. Some prefer not to know the background, but others want that bit of

knowledge. Pushing Seago thoughts a little more, the setting and period role shows the author’s

authority in their work. With the added knowledge there, a path comes into the author's mind.

There is more information about why they’re writing the work. Readers go through the Modest

Proposal and can see a man who writes with the experience of both Ireland and England. Swift

creates a nasty plan but with his knowledge about both lands, he knows what strings to pluck that

would captures the audience attentions. Swift asserts that he “think it is agreed by all parties, that

this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers,

and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom” (Swift 5). Swift

is looking at the people and foreshadowing their fates. He is understanding and acknowledging

their stress. These lines being placed at the beginning strengthens its efficiency by showing the

ethos in his argument before he even says his argument. And now that the audience is primed,

they are seeing the author projecting about eating babies, and the audience can see the local

knowledge in the work. This thought of knowledge also makes the argument that they are trying

to make stronger. Understanding that Swift origins and backgrounds will correlate with a better

chance of acceptance in understanding his purpose to get England to help Ireland.

After understanding the background of the author and their work, you look for the

author’s purpose for writing the piece. The most important thing to look for in a satirical piece is

its purpose. The satirist goal is to persuade you to look through their lens. Their goal is for the

audience to understand and react the way that the authors want them to. Swift needs to put a lot

of his effort and work into portraying its purpose properly, which is the Modest Proposal’s most

challenging moments. Charles Kay Smith, a Professor Emeritus of English of University of

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Massachusetts Amherst, evaluates the purpose, and its tone in his journal: “Towards a

‘Participatory Rhetoric’ Teaching Swifts’ Modest proposal” that better explains the role of

Swifts projector and how the rhetoric is meant to be interpreted. Smith magnifies that

From his very first sentence, then, Swift has created a narrator with whom he does not

seem to agree, and with whom he evidently does not want a reader to agree either. That

the rhetorical pattern of this first sentence is not accidental might be shown by a look at

other similar sentences in the Proposal, each of which repeats the rhetorical pattern of a

main clause concerned with the feelings of the rich and an antithetical subordinate clause

filled with detail that moves the reader but is evidently unfelt by the narrator, which

would confirm our projector stance and what his word’s purpose (Smith 137).

Smith is portraying to the audience that Swift doesn’t support his idea but puts its attention to its

word purpose, which emphasizes the purpose of the rhetoric in tackling famine. To take Smith’s

idea one step forward, Swift position in this stance strengthens how awful, but necessary his

proposal is. The purpose is to get more people to stand up and start getting involve with the

situation. By writing this awful and disturbing proposal, people are forced to into a better

mindset that their current issue cannot stand and the solutions that are being said isn’t acceptable

either. If no one is going to be constructive, then, the world can eat babies and control

overpopulation. Without change, Ireland is going uninhabitable. This issue comes back to

acknowledging the background and understanding its tone, and its audience together.

An open door towards the setting and period of the paper and the strength of the purpose

is the tools for a strong paper, but its effectiveness will go nowhere if the audience is forgotten.

Numerous times, Swift wanted England to do something, but the paper isn’t just applying to just

him. Everyone that reads this paper is in that part of the piece. Understanding peoples and
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writing to get any expression out of them is big in showing the effectiveness of the message.

Smith wants to connect the background and our audience knowledge together by enforcing its

direction of the purpose. Smith preaches:

Following Swift's general rhetorical program but of course using some strongly felt

modern subject of their own choice. But before they can begin to write a modern Swiftian

satire intelligently from an overt and an antithetical covert point of view, they should be

made aware that an understanding of the moral, social, or political assumptions of their

modern audience, as well as how to control these, is part of the rhetorical problem that

they as writers must solve (Smith 146).

Smith is just restating what the audience can be looking at when it comes to building the rhetoric.

We know that this proposal is for the lower class, so Swift is emphasizing the class and

constantly mentioning them to enforce what his point of view is. Also, trying to get England

attention too, but the problem that comes up is that you are running into different social lens. To

represent both groups, that where you would see Swift explain about babies because their

population consist of a lot of babies with many people alive. To strengthen what Smith is saying,

Swift took the time to evaluate his audience. He understands everyone’s point of view and

picked a sinister and disturbing plan so that it impacts the audience. He didn’t just pick a plan

that would get everyone attention, but a plan to frustrate and get people angry. Nicholas Diehl an

assistant professor of philosophy at Sacramento City College, writes a journal regarding satire

that is an insert from the book: “The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism” published in

November 2013. He reinforces that “The satire should be built upon an implicit but easily

recognized analogy that employs morally relevant properties to relate the fiction to the target,

and the moral criticism of the fictional analogue of the target should be readily apparent,” which
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is explaining the point that he is picking at people moral properties (Diehl 320). Though Diehl

and Smith show a lot of similarities, Diehl looks at the perspective of everyone morality.

Argument is built to put the audience in an unacceptable scenario. Selling and eating the infants

is unacceptable, and boiling, grilling, and steaming the one to two-year-old babies, shouldn’t be

tolerated. This idea is supposed to frustrate everyone. If you don’t like this idea, then produce

your own plan. Poverty is getting worse, and the future has a lot of big issues that are on its way.

There is a question, that is very critical in asking: Did Swift’s satirical piece get out of

hand. People were not a fan of an anonymous writer, talking about cooking, selling, and eating

babies especially some of their own kids. Here, a couple writers who feels that Modest Proposal

crossed a line, which reduced its effectiveness. Charles Pullen’s “Eighteen-Century Madness,

Swift and A Modest Proposal” is about a couple of stories that are not telling the message that

the authors wanted. The popular story mentioned is the Modest Proposal. Pullen writes about

Professor Max Byrd, an author who wrote many scholarly papers on eighteenth century

literature. Byrd states that:

What shocks us in Swift's satire, of course, is the gulf between the modest, well-

intentioned author and all normal human feelings, indeed all sense of reality. His fixed

idea, encrusted with elaborate reasonableness, drives a wedge between him and the truth

and makes him appear to us as horribly [disfiguredly] insane (Pullen 55).

Pullen and Byrd make a good point about how twisted the text is. It is dark and seems to be out

of any realm that we as people would interact with. Though Pullen and Byrd believe that he

builds a barrier that portrays the truth and reality. They identified this the twisted reality that

Swift created, and his experience is creating a clash, which makes the argument insane.

However, Swift creation of the twisted reality strengthens his message even more. This event is
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not a reality that he wants to live in. His message is that he doesn’t want anyone to live in this

reality. His writing isn’t insane, but critical in change. What Swift tried to create is this nasty

reality and with his skills portray to his audience that a reality like that could exist. With help

from England and other citizens then that reality can stay in the bounds of ink on a page. Pullen

was worried about Swift’s credibility, but his credibility was strengthened. The Modest Proposal

is still a very discussed, and a frequently taught subject, which portrays the effect that the satire

had on the people of Ireland and those in England.

Overall, the Modest Proposal is a very good satiric piece and is quite effective, though

there wasn’t a lot of changes due to a couple limitation to his proposal. An essay can do

something, but the work needs to take place in England, to promote solutions in dealing with

poverty. There are a lot of sections that showed the effectiveness of the essay such as: the impact

of the setting and its period, the author’s message to the audience, and the impact that the

audience had to the author’s message.

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Work Cited

Diehl, Nicholas. "Satire, analogy, and moral philosophy." The American Study of Aesthetics,

71:14 (2013), pp 311-321.

Mays, Kelly J. “The Norton Introduction to Literature” shorter 13th ed., W.W. Norton &

Company, (2019), pp.6.

Pullen, Charles. "Eighteenth-Century Madness, Swift and a Modest Proposal." The Dalhousie

Review (1978) pp 55.

Ripple, William J., Erik Meijer, and Thomas Newsome. "Saving the World with Satire: A

Response to Chapron et al." Trends in ecology & evolution, (2018) pp. 483-484.

Seago, Kate. "Restoration Satire." Library Faculty and Staff, Publications (1987), pp 11-15.

Smith, Charles Kay. "Toward a ‘Participatory Rhetoric’: Teaching Swift's Modest Proposal."

National Council of Teachers of English, (1968), pp.135-149.