Fifth, the new food will be welcomed in taverns and culinary circles. Sixth, it will enhance the institution of marriage as women take better care of their infants so that they may be sold, and men will take better care of their wives so that their wives can make more babies to sell. Swift then raises a potential objection to his proposal: that it will deplete Ireland's population. Swift responds by saying that this is the point. He says that this proposal will in no way encumber England, as the infants will not be able to be exported, as their flesh is not easily preserved for later consumption. He is not willing to entertain any other arguments for solving the problem, like virtue and thrift.
Swift concludes by saying first that he would welcome any other suggestions anyone may have on this question, then assuring the reader that he has no personal economic stake in this idea because he has no children and therefore could not profit by selling them to be eaten.
Analysis.
If you do not realize that this proposal is satirical, you have no sense of humor or irony. It is impossible to imagine a serious proposal for eating children. Yet, it is not enough simply to indulge one's outrage over the argument or to smile at the jokes. Is Swift just having fun, or does he have something serious to say? Stereotypes against Irish Catholics make it easier for Swift to use them as the subject of his satire. The stereotypes are present in both the reasons for the proposal and the language used. The narrator's argument that something must be done with infants because they are too young to steal implies that this is a common employment of Irish Catholics, even while it is humorous apart from the stereotype. The overall idea of overpopulation comes from the stereotype that Catholics tend to have a lot of children. The first reason Swift's narrator gives for adopting his proposal-that it will lessen the number of Catholics-is perhaps the best example of satire of religious prejudice in the piece.
