While Reading

Building Background

The Time and Place A Modest Proposal was first published in 1729 in Dublin; Gulliver’s Travels, in 1726 in London.

Swift’s Ireland In the early 1700s, many Irish blamed their country’s severe economic problems on England. They claimed that English landlords, who owned much of Ireland’s property, charged overly high rents; that England imposed high taxes on Ireland; and that English laws restricting Irish trade made economic recovery difficult. Many Irish also resented England’s negative attitude toward Roman Catholics. Swift expresses his disgust with English economic policies in the pamphlet A Modest Proposal.

Gulliver’s Travels In his novel Gulliver’s Travels, Swift criticizes society and pokes fun at books about travel to exotic places, which were very popular in his time. The narrator of Gulliver’s Travels, Lemuel Gulliver, is a doctor on a Royal Navy ship who washes up on the shores of several fictional countries. In each, he encounters a society very different from his own. When he returns to England, he is painfully aware of his own country’s flaws. The name Gulliver is a take-off on the word “gullible,” which means “easily persuaded or tricked.”

Literary analysis: satire

While Alexander Pope is generally sympathetic to his satirical targets, Swift’s work is darker and more biting. Satire is a literary technique in which people’s behaviors or society’s institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of bringing about social reform. Swift used satire to comment on specific political and cultural concerns that angered and offended him.

One of the satirist’s most reliable tools is verbal irony, in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant. As you read “A Modest Proposal,” notice how Swift uses verbal irony to present his seemingly rational proposal.

Reading skill: identify proposition and support

Although “A Modest Proposal” is a satire, it is written like a serious problem-solution essay. Specifically, it

• clearly identifies a problem and its causes

• proposes a solution to the problem—Swift’s proposition —and explains how to implement it

• provides support for the proposed solution in the form of reasons and evidence

• notes other possible solutions and argues against them

As you read the essay, use a chart like the one shown to record Swift’s proposition and the reasons and evidence he gives to support it.

Proposition:

Support: • “These children can help feed and clothe thousands.” •    

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