In the essay, "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, he declares his thesis about English landowners' treatment of the Irish. In the intro they say "the persona he creates is utterly inhumane, and advocate of infanticide and cannibalism" (492). He basically writes about how English landowners eat the children of the Irish people. This satirical essay by Jonathan Swift uses a certainly unthinkable prospect to shock the reader into looking at the alternatives in order to change the economic and social problems of Ireland. He relies on the readers' sense of morality to see the humor in it. The point of Swift's essay, to get readers to understand his view point on the treatment of Irish people. He tells the reader about England and how all the food from Ireland gets sent over to England and that in order to survive, they sell their children in the market. He doesn't really state in the essay how he's just joking about English landowners' treatment of the Irish and how they really eat the children. You basically have to read between the lines and see the joke Swift is trying to point out without actually writing about it.
Swift begins his essay by describing the current status of Ireland ".when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors crowded with beggars of the female sex followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms" (492). He says how when they grow up they eventually "turn into thieves from want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the pretender in Spain" (492). What he means by this is that the children are going to become thieves instead of working because that is all they are capable of doing. They won't be able to get real jobs because of the way they grew up and based on the environment and surroundings, that is all they will be able to do. Swift then says that there needs to be a change and that a person who could think of a "fair, cheap, and easy" (492) way to make these children useful would be a hero.
