A Modest Proposal!
After our discussions in class this week about the “American Experiment,” it made me think back to another very weird social experiment proposed by Jonathan Swift in 1792. Has anyone read A Modest Proposal? For those of you who haven’t here is a very quick summary of Swift’s suggested method “for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.” In this satirical piece Swift proposes to fatten up the undernourished children of the poor and feed them to Ireland's rich land-owners. The children of the poor could be sold in the meat market after the age of one year old, this being sufficient time to fatten the babies. He argues that this would solve the problem of overpopulation and unemployment by sparing families the expense of child-bearing and providing them with a little extra income. The program would provide new delicacy for the wealthy and improve the overall economic well-being of the nation.
One way that Swift supports his argument is by saying “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...” I find this statement very interesting. What is it about the fact that the recommendation came from an American? Why were Americans viewed as being credible? We have seen through our readings that America was viewed as the land of experimentation and scientific development. Maybe being part of the “American Experiment” made Americans more credible?
Another interesting fact about is that, believe it or not, many of the wealthy people of Ireland actually supported trying out this “modest proposal” as a means of population control. The wealthy Protestants saw it as a way to control the poor Catholics. While Swift never meant the proposal to be taken literally but instead wrote it in order to make a statement about the social problems within Ireland, the fact that the public took it seriously and supported the proposal is very scary!
I feel that the response of the Irish population to Swift’s “modest proposal” just illuminates another angle on defining monstrosity. As was brought up when discussing Frankenstein in class, the common conception is that monstrosity is associated with animalistic behavior. What could be more “animalistic” than eating the young of your own species? Is Mary Shelley right? Do the real monsters truly lie within humans?
One way that Swift supports his argument is by saying “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...” I find this statement very interesting. What is it about the fact that the recommendation came from an American? Why were Americans viewed as being credible? We have seen through our readings that America was viewed as the land of experimentation and scientific development. Maybe being part of the “American Experiment” made Americans more credible?
Another interesting fact about is that, believe it or not, many of the wealthy people of Ireland actually supported trying out this “modest proposal” as a means of population control. The wealthy Protestants saw it as a way to control the poor Catholics. While Swift never meant the proposal to be taken literally but instead wrote it in order to make a statement about the social problems within Ireland, the fact that the public took it seriously and supported the proposal is very scary!
I feel that the response of the Irish population to Swift’s “modest proposal” just illuminates another angle on defining monstrosity. As was brought up when discussing Frankenstein in class, the common conception is that monstrosity is associated with animalistic behavior. What could be more “animalistic” than eating the young of your own species? Is Mary Shelley right? Do the real monsters truly lie within humans?
posted by Ami at 11:44 PM
1 Comments:
I agree about the monstrosity within human nature. I feel that the response to Swift's satire was more powerful and convincing than his (admittedly hilarious) argument. However, I am interested about the use of Americans as a trusted source of information. My only idea is that the Americans were thought of as objective observers unaffected by overpopulation, severe poverty and hunger, or the religious struggles that took place in Ireland. Anyone else have an idea?
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