Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift - Essay Example It is during this time that Swift wrote this famous article. In the article, Swift goes to great detail to propose that small babies can be used as food and nourishment. In this paper, he is seen supporting and endorsing infanticide as well as cannibalism. He meticulously describes how a baby can be prepared as a delicacy and eaten. Swift’s Modest Proposal was a satirical piece of literature that used extreme irony to critic the actions of the English landlords. Yet, through this satirical piece, he never takes time to renounce this view and leaves the reader to be the moral judge, a very dangerous thing because there is a high chance that the reader may take the ideas literally.As Gordon (59) says, irony can be very useful when presenting serious ideas becaue it stresses the importance. In this article, Swift, an Anglo-Irish priest uses extreme irony without taking caution to make sure that there are no misunderstanding (Biograpohy.com, para 2). What Swift does in this articl e is to write in an ironical way that does not explicitly point to the irony, thus making it harder for the reader to be able to detect the irony. Throughout the paper, Swift uses the persona in the article to forward the crazy idea of eating a baby. He even goes to great lengths to describe the logic behind eating a baby. For instance, he describes that since babies don’t eat much until they are about one year old, and only depend on their mother’s milk during this age, they should be kept until this age and be used as food to feed the rest of the population.