To help prove to us that we should not judge others by their outside actions he tells us that none of us are constant in our day to day lives. We try to be consistent, as Swift insists, yet we never are. In defending this he says that if anyone person was consistent from day to day that they would be the perfect being, because everybody, at first, makes some judgment on a person by an outside action or appearance.
Now I will turn to Swift and his "A Modest Proposal." I believe that people confuse what Swift is trying to say in this essay more often than not. I have studied this piece of literature before. I have heard some very ridiculous things come from people's mouths as a result. Many people seem to think that Swift was saying that since there is an over abundance of children in the great city, Dublin, that the people of his generation should just try to get them ripe and sell them for profit to be eaten. I believe, no, I know that he was trying to say much more.
For many years the English had treated Ireland like they were a colony whose only purpose was to make them money. Swift says that the streets of Dublin are filled with female beggars who have children that they can not feed. He proposes that it would be profitable for a mother to have children, raise them for a year so that they would become plump, and then sell them as food. .
He also makes the reader use their skills in math to understand a part of his proposal. .
1) For Example:.
How many people are in Ireland? 1,500,000.
How many "couple whose wives are breeders"? 200,000.
Minus how many "who are able to maintain their own children"? (-) 30,000.
How many "breeders" are left? = 170,000.
Minus how many who are subtracted for other reasons? (-) 50,000.
How many "children of poor parents are annually born"? = 120,000.
2) For Example:.
How much will it cost to raise a child? 2 shillings.
How much will a gentleman pay for the "carcass of a good fat child"? 10 shillings.
