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Setting
Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Women as Livestock:
While the primary targets of the Proposer's dehumanizing language are Irish children, the impoverished mothers of those children are treated with the same indignity. Throughout "A Modest Proposal," the Proposer refers to women as livestock, using the term "breeding" to describe human reproduction. This motif often coincides with the use of statistics:
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about 200,000 couple whose wives are breeders.
In the above passage, the Proposer reveals that he considers women no better than cattle: a resource, to be controlled and regulated like any other. Their value is linked to their ability to reproduce—a reality already faced by women in Swift's society that would be further reinforced by child cannibalism. This motif generates irony within the essay because the Proposer's stated purpose is to alleviate human suffering but his proposal further dehumanizes those he intends to help.
The Proposer takes this a step further, claiming that men would care more deeply for their wives and not abuse them because of this added reproductive value:
Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
This motif illuminates the plight of working-class women, who were in this period often valued only for their ability to reproduce the laborers that society required (and exploited) in order to function.
Related Themes:
