1. The real thesis of “A Modest Proposal” is that the people of Ireland are treated very poorly and are in a very bad way. He also believes the country is not doing anything that would actually help the situation.
2. Calculate, subtract, commodity, exchange, value, charge, shillings per annum.
3. There are subtle hints of sarcasm before the actual proposal, but it becomes clear as day as soon as he mentions the idea of feeding baby’s to people in Ireland.
4. The target’s of swift’s satirical attack are landlords, the wealthy, England, and Ireland itself. He does partially blame Ireland for its own troubles, bringing to attention many things the country could do to fix its problems through satire.
5. In the last paragraph, Swift mentions that to fix the country, the following things need to be done, “…advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich.” It is implied that this should be included in any plan to fix the country.
6. Satirically, he uses the last paragraph to state his pure intentions in relation to his proposal (that he personally has nothing to gain from it, and only wants to help his country). I think the last paragraph is also a list of suggestions on what could be done to help the country in another, realistic plan.
7. Swift also uses appeals to emotion in his essay by telling of the suffering of the children and their parents who can’t afford to take care of them. I work at McDonald’s, and I have resisted my employer in more than one occasion. One event that sticks out in my mind is when one of the less experienced managers didn’t want me to “double team” ice (where one person gets the ice and hands it off for the other person to fill up) and do it myself. In pure defiance, I took one step every 3 seconds, making the process extremely slow and slowing up the restaurant. After 3 minutes, he finally gave in. I feel there is certainly a link between anger and other emotions and resistance, supported by my story above.
8. If I had to market babies, I would call it “jeunet Déli,” a play on “jeune et délicieuse” meaning young and delicious. Also, the babies would have to be ground up or styled in a way that they would not be recognized as human infants. As any fast food executive will tell you, Americans will eat anything with the right marketing campaign.
