1
The problems Swift identifies in
his society are the poor, the young leaving the country to fight for a
dethroned king, the starving of thousands, abortions, murdering of bastard
children, lack of jobs, lack of money exchange, the greed of landlords, the oppression
of religion, lack of earned goodwill by squires from tenants, Dublin’s extreme lack
of morals, non-existent care for the
elderly, the unlawful taking of corn and cattle, lack of money flow, domestic
violence, neglect of children, over population and cheating shop keepers. He
wants to set up a system to sale and eat children. I don’t think Dr. Swift is actually
serious about eating small children, I do think he is very serious about the
problems he sees in his country and the complacency of his fellow man. I think
he does a great job of mocking everyone involved in the situation with even a
bit of mockery towards himself. I do think he is thinking of this very
logically. He has contemplated what he can say to cause such a shock in those
around him that they will realize that they are on a path leading to more atrocities
because of lack of concern. He completely outlines exactly the mess his country
is in, giving evidence that although his proposal is at first shocking, people
should have been shocked into reacting long before it had to come to writing
this.
I found some of his explanations a
bit distracting from the point though, one being 9lbs is rather big for a new
born. The average birth weight being 7lbs. In a society where starvation and
begging were prevalent the average birth rate to poor malnutritioned women
likely having other children would be closer to 5 lbs.
My last comment is Why, why why
does it have to be the “American”
friend who has experience in eating children?
Carli,
ReplyDeleteI asked myself the same thing when he mentioned that it was an American that had told him about eating children, why? Like you agree completely that there is logic behind Swifts madness in this essay. It's sad though that it takes someone going to such drastic measures with his words to get a point across on such a horrific problem. Good job on your post!
Teghan
I agree with your post on Swift's article. I pointed out most of the same things you did from the reading. I found this article a little obsurd and outrageous. I also recognized right off after reading the article the first time that the "friend" who suggested this idea was American. I do not know much about Ireland in these times but this article provides some pretty major problems that these people were suffering from in this area at that time. Good post!
ReplyDeleteNathan