50 pages • 1 hour read
Jonathan SwiftA Modest Proposal
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1729A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Literary Devices
Satire
In the modern Western world, Jonathan Swift is virtually synonymous with satire, a literary form and device that uses wit and irony to mock public figures or societal conventions. In the case of A Modest Proposal, Swift adopts the persona of a heartless and out-of-touch Anglo-Irish elite who contends that eating infants is the solution to poverty in Ireland. Although the narrator’s identity is not revealed, Swift models his rhetoric and argumentative techniques on several influential economic thinkers including William Petty. The success of the satire relies on Swift’s ability to create ironic distance between the narrator’s attitudes and Swift’s own beliefs. Although the satire is presented in a straight and deadpan manner, Swift easily signals his intent through the sheer absurdity of his premise.
Paralipsis
Paralipsis is a device in which a writer or speaker argues a point while professing to deny its relevance or importance. Swift uses this device to great effect late in the essay when the narrator writes, “Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients” (57), before launching into a list of far more sensible reforms that Swift himself likely supports. Using this method, Swift frames his own sincere arguments concerning poverty in Ireland within an otherwise ludicrous pamphlet, all without breaking character. Furthermore, the technique allows these sober, thoughtful ideas to reach a larger audience because they are contained within a humorous and attention-grabbing argument.
Incongruity
Beginning with the title, Swift uses incongruity to strengthen the work’s comedic value. The notion of calling a scheme like the narrator’s “modest” is only the first of many incongruous juxtapositions that work to maintain a perverse sense of shock in the reader. The second major incongruity exists between the horrific nature of the narrator’s proposal and the measured, calm demeanor of his rhetoric. A particularly striking example of this arrives when the narrator discusses the favorable effects of his proposal on the meat industry. He writes:
As to our city of Dublin, shambles [slaughterhouses] may be appointed for this purpose in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive than dressing them hot from the knife as we do roasting pigs (54).
The rhetorical whiplash felt when the narrator turns from a sober explanation of meat industry logistics to cutting raw slabs of meat off of babies emphasizes the inhumanity of viewing poverty in stark economic terms rather than a humanitarian lens.
Hyperbole
While the tone and structure of Swift’s essay is similar to other economic pamphlets written by his contemporaries, what clearly sets it apart as satire is the author’s use of hyperbole and exaggeration. It is important to point out that the narrator’s baby-eating scheme, shocking as it is, does not come out of left field. Nor is it designed solely to shock the reader by invoking what is arguably the most detestable taboo in human civilization. Rather, the proposal is an exaggerated yet fretfully logical conclusion, reached by following the then-prevalent economic mantra that people are commodities. As a result, Swift’s use of hyperbole undermines more sober economic arguments that nevertheless view workers and their families solely through the prism of the market.
Related Titles
By Jonathan Swift
