Satire Tension In A Modest Proposal

The satirical tension in A Modest Proposal is between the supposed humanitarian and cannibalistic aspects of the proposal. The proposer uses innocent phrases to make the proposal seem genuine. The children are described as helpless to gain the audience’s sympathy: “helpless infants”, “poor innocent babes”, “children, all in rags” and “children of poor parents” (Swift 2633-34). However, later in the proposal, the proposer takes on a sinister tone by presenting the children in a dehumanized manner. The proposer speaks of the Irish children as if they were animals, “it is true a child, just dropped from its dam, may be supported by her milk for a solar year with little other nourishment” (Swift 2633). Swift uses phrases related to animals to present …show more content…
The investigation found that though the children were directly dehumanized, it was a mechanism to indirectly dehumanize the wealthy Irish. The wealthy are dehumanized as cannibals to illustrate their ogre-like behaviour by following the mercantilist beliefs that the population is a nation’s riches. The wealthy promote an increase of population so that the wages of the people can be kept low and provides the wealthy the opportunity to exploit the poor. Scholars such as Ferguson and Lockwood only considered the economic aspect and Swift’s persona, and did not directly consider the effect of using dehumanization as a satirical device. This essay’s analysis expands the understanding of A Modest Proposal by considering how dehumanization adds to the scholarly investigation of mercantilism and the proposer’s role. The effect of the dehumanization serves to give the poor people an appearance of puppets in the hands of the ogre-like wealthy. This dehumanization reveals the physicality of the wealthy and how underneath the layers of clothing, ranks and wealth, they are too made of flesh and must re-consider their ogre-like