Themes
The essay “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift touches upon many issues which are connected to poverty in Ireland in the 18th century. The author uses motifs like suffering, class, power, morality and religion, nationalism, politics, mercantilism (policy promoting government regulation of the economy to improve the power of the state), and greed, to explore two main themes: the exploitation of the Irish by the English, and the Irish’s indifference towards the worsening conditions in their country.
Exploitation
Using the motifs of poverty, class, politics, mercantilism, and greed, the author’s satire targets the issue of the exploitation of the Irish, by rich Irish people at a social level, and by the English at a political level. The satire presents an absurd solution to the issue of poverty in Ireland—eating small children of the poor or hunting them down like animals.
The way the narrator presents the issue of poor people and their children suggests that people from higher classes view them as numbers, commodities, and an overall inconvenience. They are only valuable if they can work and increase the well-being of the higher classes. Poor adults and children are not people, but a “hundred thousand useless mouths and backs” (p. 8, l. 18) which can only become valuable if they are of some purpose to “the public” (p. 1, l. 15), and specifically to the rich.
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Indifference of the Irish
The theme of inertia or indifference of the Irish is also explored at different levels in the story. First of all, their inaction with regards to solving the problem of poverty is emphasised through the focus on a catch-all solution. The author suggests that Irish people (landlords, administrative clerks, and politicians) are incapable of finding specific solutions to challenges, and would rather spend time looking for a “cheap, easy, and effectual” (p. 5, ll. 13-14) solution. Furthermore, they believe that their worsening situation can never be overcome through sustained action: “under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed.” (p. 2, ll. 30-31). The speaker suggests that this is because no-one is willing to make the changes necessary to find a solution to the problem, many of which would involve some personal sacrifice on the part of the wealthy.
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