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A Modest Proposal

Jonathan Swift

Book Overview: 

Jonathan Swift almost defines satire in this biting and brutal pamphlet in which he suggests that poor (Catholic) Irish families should fatten up their children and sell them to the rich (Protestant) land owners, thus solving the twin problems of starving children and poverty in one blow.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .I propose to provide for them in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding, and partly to the cloathing of many thousands.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under th. . . Read More

Community Reviews

"A Modest Proposal" is a masterpiece of rhetoric and wit. It's studied at every level of education, from High School to PhD, for its social context and satirical arguments. We know it's brilliant because we've been told so, but one hopes we wouldn't need a teacher to explain why the short essay shou

Last night my daughter asked me to watch what passes for comedy to pre-teens on Nickelodeon; a show low on laughs but high on laugh track. It's Halloween week and of course the thematic drum of cheap scares and slutty costumes (those of you dads that have 11 year old girls know what it is like to ta

Unbelievably funny satire that is painfully relevant today, a couple hundred years after it was written.

The famous satirist, author of Gulliver's Travels, wrote several political texts vituperating against the hopeless condition of his native Ireland and the ineptitude of its British rulers (thank God, things have much improved since!). This short volume includes a few of these texts. In one of them,

Book Review

A Modest Proposal is a satirical work of fiction by Jonathan Swift, written nearly 300 years ago. It is an Irish piece, originally published anonymously, but served as a way to shove stupidity in the face of the English government and wealthy. Essentially, in order to solve th

This made me laugh so much. It’s just so brilliantly funny. Swift adopts a very serious tone, and an authoritative voice, that almost sounds real. He delivers his proposal in such a hilariously cold way that embodies a dejected government official. I could imagine him writing this whilst struggling

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