The Use Of Satire In A Modest Proposal By Jonathan Swift

Satire is the process in which a work is mocked or denounced, sometimes in a comical way to judge or critique the original work’s intent. Jonathan Swift uses this exact same technique in “A Modest Proposal” to ridicule William Petty’s plan for Ireland in “Political Arithmetic”. William Petty’s work outlines a plan that would allow England to manipulate Ireland’s people and land to improve English wealth and prosperity at the expense of Ireland’s sovereignty. Swift mocks Petty’s dehumanization of people and reliance on statistical values in order to demonize the English, who enrich themselves at Ireland’s expense. William Petty’s demoralizing and detached word choice set the stage for Swift’s satire. By focusing on Petty’s dehumanizing language, …show more content…
First, Petty uses statistical numbers to describe and prove his plan at the expense of humanity. Swift uses the same tactics by using numbers to establish that “a hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents [are] annually born…,” whereas twenty thousand of these babies should be reserved for breeding and the rest reserved as livestock (Swift 1289). This is reminiscent of how Petty reserves three hundred thousand people of Ireland for livestock and the other million will be forcefully immigrated to England (Petty 1294). Petty places value onto the Irish within his plan at about seventy pounds a person to England, and thus Swift places value onto the infants depending upon how plump they are (Swift . This is important because it further treats Irishmen and women as less than human as numbers. In acknowledging the poverty problem in Ireland, Swift monetizes children at no more than “three pounds or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the Exchange” to gather support for his plan. Another aspect that Swift explores is how Ireland’s women are reduced by Petty as potential suitors for Englishmen and breeders. Petty extensively maps out the potential of Irishwomen to increase the population of England further dehumanizes them and fails to calculate the number already married in Ireland instead opting to compare ratios. Petty uses the ratio of “560 …show more content…
In the same way that Petty describes people using livestock terms, Swift takes the liberty of turning Ireland’s youth into livestock. Much in the same manner that England would benefit off of Ireland’s livestock in Petty’s plan, Swift uses the same notion by characterizing England as the main importer in Irish flesh. Petty describes the relationship between England and Ireland as an enrichment process, where Ireland receives nothing in return for exporting to England (Petty 1294). However, Swift takes this relationship one step further by implying that this enriching is destroying the youth of Ireland, and indebting Irish people to England. This shows that Petty is wrong in the sense that England is exporting poverty and grief in the process of manipulating the Irish people for their bidding. Swift characterizes Ireland as a land of beggars in his opening, and only now that the English have “devoured most of the parents” do they set their attention “to the children” This line emphasizes the strain English landlords put on Irish parents, which eats away from the next generation. In describing an English landlord, Swift argues that he will “learn to be a good landlord” only after being served the excess of meat provided by the butchering of Irish infants (Swift 1290) With little more to offer the English landlords, Swift retorts Petty that the sale of