Day 20 in the snow.....panic everywhere.
Thank God i've got tins in
Friday 24 December 2010
Friday 3 December 2010
Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist and political writer who was born in 1667.
Although he is perhaps best known for his novel 'Gulliver's Travels' the piece of Swift's work that I looked at was his satirical essay written 1729 entitled 'A Modest Proposal'.
Swift begins this essay by outlining his 'great intentions' to help the poor people of Ireland. The exaggerated grandeur of such language was undoubtedly a subversive mocking of Empiricist writing, as it is very similar to the pompous tone used by followers of this school such as Locke.
Swift highlights the plight of the poor and emphasizes the need to find a cheap and fair way to help them, help themselves. Swifts ingenious idea to achieve this is for Irish people to start eating babies.
Under this plan, Swift says that as children are not of much value to their parents anyway and are expensive to raise, selling a child between the ages of 1 and 2 when, according to his 'American friend' (a narrative trick Addision also used) they are at their most delicious as a luxurious food, would bring in income for poorer families and save them the money on raising the child anyway.
Swift outlines a number of surprisingly convincing advantages of this proposal. The first point he lists is that it would lower the number of Papists, who he implies breed too much as it is. This humorous attack on Catholicism was very in keeping with the general attitude of many at this time as it was widely believed that they could not be trusted and harboured allegiances abroad.
Swift proposes that selling their babies to the rich would also mean that the poor had something valuable to trade with that would both make and save them money.
He adds that taverns would also benefit, famine would decrease, the economy would improve and debt and poverty would be reduced as a result of this scheme.
My favourite of Swifts advantages for his proposal however, is that it would prevent men from abusing their pregnant wives by methods such as kicking them in the stomach, as they would not want to risk harming their unborn money-making child. Swift seems very anti-abortion and this plan would mean that such a practise would also be made redundant.
Although from a modern day perspective this cannibalism seems inhumane, I couldn't help but think that economically speaking Swifts proposal made a lot of sense. Indeed considering the hunger and suffering that the poor endured during this period in Ireland, his argument that the children would be saved from a life of misfortune and pain anyway makes his idea sound somewhat kind. The essay is so well written that Swift makes an idea that when first heard seem so far-fetched appear very reasonable. This is due to the brilliance of his satire of Empiricist style writers and his economically accurate and logical hypotheses.
So good in fact, that I'm contemplating how much my new-born niece would fetch on the black market......and whether she'd taste good with gravy.
Click here for a great 'rap' video summarizing Swift's Proposal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf0LH8FtHAc
Although he is perhaps best known for his novel 'Gulliver's Travels' the piece of Swift's work that I looked at was his satirical essay written 1729 entitled 'A Modest Proposal'.
Swift begins this essay by outlining his 'great intentions' to help the poor people of Ireland. The exaggerated grandeur of such language was undoubtedly a subversive mocking of Empiricist writing, as it is very similar to the pompous tone used by followers of this school such as Locke.
Swift highlights the plight of the poor and emphasizes the need to find a cheap and fair way to help them, help themselves. Swifts ingenious idea to achieve this is for Irish people to start eating babies.
Under this plan, Swift says that as children are not of much value to their parents anyway and are expensive to raise, selling a child between the ages of 1 and 2 when, according to his 'American friend' (a narrative trick Addision also used) they are at their most delicious as a luxurious food, would bring in income for poorer families and save them the money on raising the child anyway.
Swift proposes that selling their babies to the rich would also mean that the poor had something valuable to trade with that would both make and save them money.
He adds that taverns would also benefit, famine would decrease, the economy would improve and debt and poverty would be reduced as a result of this scheme.
My favourite of Swifts advantages for his proposal however, is that it would prevent men from abusing their pregnant wives by methods such as kicking them in the stomach, as they would not want to risk harming their unborn money-making child. Swift seems very anti-abortion and this plan would mean that such a practise would also be made redundant.
Although from a modern day perspective this cannibalism seems inhumane, I couldn't help but think that economically speaking Swifts proposal made a lot of sense. Indeed considering the hunger and suffering that the poor endured during this period in Ireland, his argument that the children would be saved from a life of misfortune and pain anyway makes his idea sound somewhat kind. The essay is so well written that Swift makes an idea that when first heard seem so far-fetched appear very reasonable. This is due to the brilliance of his satire of Empiricist style writers and his economically accurate and logical hypotheses.
So good in fact, that I'm contemplating how much my new-born niece would fetch on the black market......and whether she'd taste good with gravy.
Click here for a great 'rap' video summarizing Swift's Proposal - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf0LH8FtHAc
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