Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, was selected as our Monthly Short Story for March 2020. The discussion thread is located in the Monthly Short Story Folder:

Beware Short Story Discussions will have Spoilers.

Just finished reading it.

Swift seems to have been a practically thinking man at the very least!

Last read this for high school a decade ago and struggled writing an essay about it, but I think I understand irony and satire a little better now. The way this essay just smacks you in the face with a seemingly sound proposal every few paragraphs is a shock, and the last sentence saying, "No worries. I won't get any money out of this. My youngest child is nine and my wife can't have kids anymore," screams the speaker's privilege since he wouldn't even have to sell a child to this scheme.

Another thing that stood out to me is how the speaker casts blame on everyone rather than only the wealthy and powerful. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding! Sure, the landlords take everything from the tenants (as an aside, today's comparable essay might reference Mao Zedong's mass killings of landlords), the poor need to resort to begging to survive, and people who are sick/disabled are dying in the streets, but politicians haven't done anything to help. The paragraph of buying locally, taxing absent landowners, requiring landlords to have some human decency...All these things were written about prior to Swift's proposal and never came to fruition, which is why he basically says, "Don't bother arguing that these are better options because obviously no one cares enough to actually DO them."

I've always liked this essay, and it reads differently in today's climate too. I appreciate this group helping me rediscover it.

This was the first time I’ve read anything by Jonathon Swift. It certainly is a very novel proposal!

After I read A Modest Proposal a little over a week ago, I was very interested to learn what its contemporary response was. A quick internet search on that topic yielded mostly Lord Bathurst's letter. While that letter seemed to acknowledge the satire, in taking the "joke" farther it made me wonder if the root issues were being taken seriously or just being winked at. Swift's work was definitely an interesting read.

Things were just the same in Ireland 100 years later, if not worse.
The British land owners, absentee for the most part, were exporting food during the Potato Famine while the people in Ireland were starving to death.

I found this pdf online. It looks to be a quick read. I also had not realized that it was a political essay. ....."The poor you will always have with you." It is interesting. I hope he meant it satirically.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/r...

This has to be one of the best short stories I have read. Adding this to My Favorite Books tag for sure. How clever of Swift. I laughed out loud so many times. My favorite parts:
1. A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burthen to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public NOTE: The full title is so intriguing and better than just A Modest Proposal.
2. 200,000 couples whose wives are breeders. NOTE: I am a breeder. LOL!
3. 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; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. NOTE: or maybe in a ratatouille
4. Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin of which artificially dressed will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen. NOTE: I really could use some new gloves.
5. Schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable; and to fatten them would not answer the change. NOTE: obviously they are too muscular and the muscles would be sinewy and tough to chew.
6. Then as to the females, it would I think with humble submission be a loss to the public, because they soon would become breeders themselves. NOTE: so we can't eat them as they must be saved to produce more babies and can be dined on after 1 year old.

Lynn wrote: "I found this pdf online. It looks to be a quick read. I also had not realized that it was a political essay. ....."The poor you will always have with you." It is interesting. I hope he meant it sat..."

Maybe that was not meant quite so satrically but just a sad observation, backed up by the Bible. Matthew 26:11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

I was not expecting the content of this story at all. I think I read the whole thing with my jaw dropped open! Great recommendation and choice.

This was a real gem, so many sharp observations and criticisms. I'm glad the group chose this one, I wouldn't have found it otherwise

I read this last year while I was reading Gulliver’s Travels to better understand Swift’s writing. My review says that A Modest Proposal was well done but the subject matter was disturbing. I believe that a jolt (such as this story should have provided) needs to happen sometimes to attract the attention of a indifferent social strata.

I read this quite a few years ago when pursuing my B.A degree and was happy to reread it now with older and hopefully maybe wiser eyes. Swift's shocking and therefore biting satire masquerading as persuasive essay was still there, fresh as ever. Countless generations have and will no doubt continue to enjoy the biting wit.

What I failed to notice on my earlier reading, but picked up on for the first time in my current reading is that Swift went further than I originally realized. Rather than just criticize and lampoon all the way through his essay, Swift actually at one point in all seriousness proposed a remedy to his society's ills.

He introduces his serious (actual) proposal with this preface: "Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients," and then goes on to list the expedients (or remedies) he thinks would be useful. [The numbering is mine.]

1) Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: [Soak the 1%.]

2) Of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: [Buy domestic, not foreign or imported goods.]

3) Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: [I think he is saying not to buy foreign luxury items, like fancy foreign race cars, expensive wines, etc. for domestic use.]

4) Of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: [Goodbye cosmetics, perfume, and fashion industry. No decks of cards to be sold either. Women need to be cleaning or cooking instead of playing games, you know, being productive homemakers.]

5) Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: [Encourage people to save rather than splurge on parties, weddings, and whatnot.]

6) Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: [Make our country great again, even if no one else in the world exhibits as much mindless jingoistic patriotism. Dance like nobody's watching.]

7) Of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: [Bring the troops home. No more oil for blood. No more partisan bickering.]

8) Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: [Pay your 2% of GDP for your own defense you freeriding NATO countries! Don't rely on another country to be your mercenary.]

9) Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. [Quit foreclosing on folks so fast when times get tough.]

10) Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shopkeepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it. [You want to ship jobs overseas, or agree to disadvantageous trade agreements, however fair, you're going to be sorry you unpatriotic companies.]

A lot of Swift's (serious) proposals sound a lot like Trump's to me, not to mention a few other populist leaders', which I find amazing. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

And why was it that being American was twice equated to being an expert in cannibalism? Did Swift have some ax to grind against his overseas cousins?

When the "view activity" link is clicked from the group homepage, this topic is NOT what results. This page does: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show_...

Dan wrote: "I read this quite a few years ago when pursuing my B.A degree and was happy to reread it now with older and hopefully maybe wiser eyes. Swift's shocking and therefore biting satire masquerading as ..."

I quickly skimmed the pdf copy I printed out and saw with a shock that it was satirical. I had a quick laugh and thought, " I will read more carefully later."


Now that it is later I am not laughing. It is truly serious and sad, although with a witty delivery. I think Dan did a wonderful job of summarizing Swift's political position.

I went a bit into the history.... short synopsis here. England was rather prosperous at the time and had about 1/3 of the population in what was considered "poverty". Yet, there was no famine and the crops had done well in the 1720s. Not so in Ireland. There was much poverty there, crop failure and Swift blamed a good bit on the policies of the government.

I think the best part of Swift's wit is to take a figurative expression and make it literal. My copy has line numbers. He says "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords who, as they have already devoured most the parents, seem to have the best title to the children." (lines 76-78)

There is quite a list of people that Swift pokes fun at:

Protestant and Catholic partisans - the Pretender's supporters.
a French writer who had the ridiculous notion that there were more Catholic children because fish was a prolific diet - causing more babies?
Gentlemen who had over hunted deer on their estates.

I am sure there are others I left out.

I also liked the quote: "But, as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thought, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal...." (lines 209 - 213)

Swift after writing many political pamphlets finally came upon this extreme and humorous manner to make his point. but such a black humor. He mentions numbers that point out a 30% infant death rate among the poor. He mentions husbands beating women to induce miscarriages. He mentions deliberate abortions among desperate people, and even the poor treatment of the unmarried mothers.

In the end I felt it was very sad to read.

This was my first Swift. I can't really count Gulliver's Travels because I'm pretty sure what I read was a children's version of it. I hope to read the real one someday.

I love sarcasm. It has a special way of enlightening, I think. And what this one showed me was how often arguments can be made for something that skip right over the obvious, often moral, reason why they are absurd.

So I enjoyed this one.

Dan, I also wondered about the American/cannibalism link. Does anyone know what this was based on? Is there a pre-Donner Party story I'm forgetting?

Kathleen, I wonder if this would have been a reference to the Jamestown Colony. It has been proven that when they were starving they dug up the dead and ate them. Not sure if Swift would have known this, but maybe?

Sara wrote: "Kathleen, I wonder if this would have been a reference to the Jamestown Colony. It has been proven that when they were starving they dug up the dead and ate them. Not sure if Swift would have known..."

Ooh. Interesting. The timing is right--could be!

This book is cited as an example of literature that was supposed to have had an effect to change things for the better, but in actuality failed to.

I'm not so sure if the work failed to help or not. In any event, things did get better in Ireland between when the book was written and 1841. At least, they got better if population figures are the measure. In 1729 when A Modest Proposal was written, Ireland's population was 2.5 million. By 1841 Ireland's population had grown to 8.2 million. Something good was going on. Of course, by 1891 it was back down to 4.7 million. That may be at least in part because 4.5 million Irish were estimated to have emigrated to the U.S. between 1820 and 1930. The problems between 1841 and 1891 that lowered the population so drastically were not what Swift could have been writing against in 1729.

On whether Swift's references to the Americans could have been related to the cannibalism that took place in Jamestown in 1609, I think you are correct. I found the following information at Smithsonian's website:

--- Sixteen years later, in 1625, George Percy, who had been president of Jamestown during the Starving Time, wrote a letter describing the colonists’ diet during that terrible winter. “Haveinge fedd upon our horses and other beastes as longe as they Lasted, we weare gladd to make shifte with vermin as doggs Catts, Ratts and myce…as to eate Bootes shoes or any other leather,” he wrote. “And now famin beginneinge to Looke gastely and pale in every face, thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.” ---

From https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...

Thanks for helping me by figuring that odd reference out!

Fantastic suggestion for a short read and some Irish history. Thank you!

Dan wrote: "This book is cited as an example of literature that was supposed to have had an effect to change things for the better, but in actuality failed to.

I'm not so sure if the work failed to help or n..."

Thank you Dan. Your comments have made reading this much more meaningful.

Read this today. One thing that really jumped out at me was when he said the average baby was 12 pounds when it was born! Were their pounds different than ours? Or was Swift just assuming everyone was giving birth to massive babies? Lol. I would hate to give birth to a 12 pound baby!

I was just scrolling through one (of the many) versions of the Boxall's 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I was surprised to see A Modest Proposal there. I can see why, but I just had never noticed it before.

Finally found the quiet time to read this again. I appreciate your comments, Dan, particularly the list of serious solutions to a very real problem. Sometimes to make people listen you have to outrage them, and this piece of satire was Swift's last resort--an attempt to make people look in the mirror and see themselves as part of the problem. I remember this being taught to me in high school as the perfect illustration of satire and irony. I'm pretty sure it still holds first place.

I teach political science and I think I'm going to need to find a way to bring this into some of my classes in the future. I'm not sure yet how we'll address what's going on now, since we're still in the midst of it, but I can't help but see the connections to the political responses to this pandemic. We've seen a few "modest proposals" just this week about trading public health for economic growth (as if they are unconnected, though that's a different conversation).

The more context you have for Swift's time, the more you can appreciate the brilliance and subtlety of his satire. There are so many layers of political commentary, as Dan and Lynn have noted, and the oblique references to the nationality and religion of the "breeders" and "consumers" would have been quite pointed for his contemporary audience in Britain and especially Ireland.

Dan and Joe--you make such excellent points. Thank you for sharing these. Frightening how we are are seeing a form of this played out right now.

I'm just starting A Tale of a Tub by Swift. Perhaps this is the perfect time for his satire.

I'd vote for reading A Tale of a Tub. The group hasn't read it yet and there's no group discussions of it. The only three members of our group to have read it gave it two, two, and three stars respectively. For it to win a poll might be a tough sell.

I just saw this on Twitter and thought everyone would appreciate today's modest proposal. (Click the image to see all three tweets)

https://twitter.com/chrisnoessel/stat...

That is marvelous, Joe. The number of people who do not get satire is probably even larger now than when the original was published.

Sara wrote: "That is marvelous, Joe. The number of people who do not get satire is probably even larger now than when the original was published."

Why do you think that is?

Interesting question, Katy. For one, serious satire was a more common device in the past. Many things that were not allowed to be said outright could be fashioned into satire and the point made. People were more accustomed to it, so perhaps they read it differently. And then, I think we are in some ways a less intelligent society now then we were then; we think less for ourselves and tend to take things more at face value than delving deeper. We do not read or produce anything akin to the Federalist Papers or other persuasive political pieces, where a writer is required to explain and justify his position --we tend to go for the palaver that makes up twitter or the evening news. Understanding satire requires thought, perhaps we are too lazy to commit to that much effort.

Another loss, sadly, is our sense of humor. We cannot laugh at ourselves anymore. We take our own positions as infallible. We become entrenched and cannot be shaken. If you were a person who was on the other side of the Irish question in Swift's time, you might have read this "proposal" and realize that you might need to soften your view, for you would understand his point. What few would have done then was believe or even pretend to believe that Swift was actually suggesting that the children of Ireland be eaten.

Thank you so much for sharing that Joe! Revealing in the same way Swift's proposal is.

And I couldn't agree more with your answer, Sara. I know of students participating in debate teams who practice justifying their position and arguing for sides they may not agree with, but I think the majority of us are sorely lacking in that ability. And how true that our entrenchment keeps us from laughing at ourselves.

I think we have less of that in school these days. When I was in school we were often required to play devil's advocate and sometimes you learned so much that you in fact changed your mind. Political discourse without venom helps us grow, what we have now keeps us from growing, and in fact holds ALL of us back.

I was hooked on Jonathan Swifts satirical ability when I read about how Gulliver put out the palace fire. I laughed out loud, I hardly ever do that, it attracts attention and I'm low key and soft spoken. :)

I can't be sure, but I can't remember hearing the words "debate team or society" for years. I don't think it was around when my kids were in high school. I say that because my oldest most likely would have joined, he would argue with a rock. I agree that we need open dialogue and opposing opinions being freely and openly discussed.

For me terms like "safe space," trigger words," hate speech," don't have a place in a free society. If you are for a position state your position, then have the courtesy to listen to the opposite side.

Exactly, Bob. I laughed again at your memory of the fire extinguisher. I remember taking an 18th Century course in college and having a very droll little man for a teacher. He was hilarious when we came to discussing Swift and brought the entire era alive. Even the poetry of the time is laden with satire. I remember LOVING Alexander Pope.

Bob wrote: "I laughed out loud, I hardly ever do that, it attracts attention and I'm low key and soft spoken. :)"

Now you made me laugh out loud! That is me, to a t.