A Letter to Mr. Samuel Smarmy
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Dear Mr. Smarmy,
Your concerns with Jonathan Swifts essay “A Modest Proposal” and its use in our school system are understandable when taking the essay in from a broad perspective. However, there is a deeper meaning embedded within the disturbing suggestions of the essay, that I fear you have missed. Swift is not actually suggesting people should use children as livestock, he is using satire and irony to show that the wealthy upper-class Anglicans of his society are figuratively eating the lower class. So you see, where Swifts writing could be mistaken for a serious suggestion of cannibalism, there are clues and hints that exemplify the real purpose of his essay; to show the significance of the lower class in society in relation to the upper class. The essay is filled with satire and irony and is used to teach your son how to pick out and understand these techniques.
Swift begins his essay by talking about how much of an inconvenience it must be for the rich to have to look upon these “beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags” (408). there is irony in the first sentence of the essay. Swift addresses the pains of having to look at the poor, but not the pains of actually being poor. There is an even greater example of irony before the first line of the essay, the title. Swift calls his essay “A Modest Proposal”. His proposal is to, in a nutshell, breed children for consumption and clothing. This proposal is not modest at all, it is disturbing to all, including the school board, and obviously to you as well Mr. Smarmy.
By this point, the second line of the essay, it is clear that Swift has something going on behind the scenes in his mind that he is presenting to us straight forward, however, we need to understand his satire to understand his purpose. It is imperative to differentiate writer from speaker in this essay before we can crack his code and find the real meaning behind the disturbing foreground of his essay. There are many places in the essay where Swifts true opinion comes to light and we get a glimpse of what he really thinks of his society. We can start to form an image in our minds of who Jonathan swift really is and who his speaker is impersonating when he says things such as, “lessening the number of papists among us.” (411) and “lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun” (413). By knowing the definition of a papist – a disparaging term for Roman Catholic – we can insinuate that the speaker is in favor of the protestant group in Ireland. This allows us to see a basic view of the speakers background and who he is appealing to. Swift, the writer, drops hints of his true opinion into the essay when he writes things such as “I grant this food will be [] proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.” (411). This presents a quick glimpse of Swifts true opinion of the landlords and how they, figuratively, through oppression and a tight grip on their tenants, have already done away with the parents of poor children.
Now that there is a clear difference between writer and speaker shown in Swifts essay, each can be focused on separately and evaluated. The speaker in this essay is educated, logical and thorough. However,