How Historical Background Influenced Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal - Research Paper Example

How did the tension between Britain and Ireland influence Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal”? Sometimes a literary work could provide a better and deeper insight into a society at a particular period of time than the rigid information provided by historians. It is in this respect that Jonathan Swift successfully provided his audience with a glimpse of his time in his work, A Modest Proposal. This piece of literature has been significantly influenced by the conflict between Britain and Ireland. A Modest Proposal is a satire that straightforwardly suggested that in order for Ireland to solve its food problems by using its children as meals. The masterpiece is widely regarded as humor but at the same time it is widely recognized as a criticism to the politico-economic system imposed by Britain that has significantly diminished the living standards in Ireland. In the narrative, Swift posited that it would be beneficial if the Irish would fatten their babies and feed them to the merchants in order to solve hunger problems and the overpopulation of children especially among the impoverished families. In an amusing and scathing take on the British mercantile attitude and practices, Swift calculated the population of Irish babies and enthused: I am assured by our Merchants, that a Boy or a Girl before twelve Years old, is no saleable Commodity; and even when they come to this Age, they will not yield above Three Pounds, or Three Pounds and half a Crown at most, on the Exchange; which cannot turn to Account either to the Parents or Kingdom (Swift 1742, 265). Swift gallantly opined that feeding babies to their parents can solve a host of other problems besides hunger. For instance, the babies can replenish the landlords who have already consumed the babies’ parents; the Catholic population can be reduced, in effect, pleasing the English administrators; the children can be used as a medium of exchange particularly in terms of paying rent; and, the practice could also augment marital bliss, since babies could be used to generate family wealth. Some commentators mistake Swift’s intent with this particular work, with few went as far as branding it as cruel. For example, Mercier (1962) commented that the Irish has deep emotional involvement in the miseries of their country making the use of irony and satire inappropriate given the enormity of the Irish situation and instead of humor, nationalists should vent their indignation in factual indictments of the British misgovernment (185-186). However, Swift’s true intention was all about charity and the attack on the British policies towards the Irish through the use of ironies and satire. The tension between Britain and Ireland then was highlighted here in the economic context. With the use of people as some form of national resource that could be traded, manipulated, exploited and used for whatever purposes Britain deemed fit made Swift’s arguments more exaggerated and, hence, effective. What the satire clearly implied was that Britain, particularly its mercantile policies, is bleeding Ireland dry, as its resources were being hoarded and transported to England. In short, Ireland then was a basket case, wherein: the people had one of the worst living standards in Europe; housed in squalid shelters; and, poverty driving people either to their death or to immigrate to other countries. The tragic situation was due to the technological backwardness in agriculture and industry but significantly also due to the fact that Ireland had to live in the shadow of the English economic progress. There are two important variables that demonstrated the adverse effect of the British policies on the Irish situation. First, there were the Protestant landlords who became absentee landlords during the Restoration period. This problem had its roots in the 17th century English civil war between Charles I and Parliament when Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the parliamentary forces, quashed Irish rebellions and implemented large-scale confiscation of lands through the 1653 Act of Settlement. According to McKernan and McQuade (2005), before 1641, Irish Catholics owned three-fifths of the land but by 1680s, they owned one-fifth of it and were relegated into mere serfs and tenants (12). Then, “a 1695 act allowed landlords to establish tenancies at will, which permitted owners to remove unwanted tenants and raise rents arbitrarily” (Hollis 2001, 69). This practice has contributed to the retardation of productivity as pasturelands overtook arable lands – as cattle was clearly preferred by the landlords over crops. Secondly, there was the enactment of the Navigation Act of 1696 which “prohibited potentially valuable colonial imports from reaching Irish ports” and that “Irish exports, overly dependent on cattle and wool, were subordinated to English interests, resulting in restrictions on trade in essentials such as salt, beer, and wool” (70). This act, among other succeeding economic policies in Britain had effectively halted the eighteenth-century Irish economy, which initially held tremendous potential. In the latter part of Swift’s life, he came back to Ireland and became involved in advancing the Irish causes. Central to his crusade was the commentaries on how Ireland has become so marginalized by British interests. One of Swift’s actions besides writing for Irish causes was his political campaign “against William Wood’s Halfpence, a privately minted copper coin arranged, authorized, and minted in Britain only, that he believe would devalue Irish currency and so harm the Irish economy” (Wright 2010, 170). The theme explored in A Modest Proposal was echoed in several other written works such as The Story of the Injured Lady (1746) wherein the author personified Ireland as some ageing mistress discarded in favor of England’s union with Scotland. There was also the Answer to the Craftsman (1729), wherein, in his usual satirical style, he outlined the tragic trade and economic situation in Ireland and went on attacking how thousands of young Irishmen are being shipped abroad to fight for Britain while 20,000 English soldiers are stationed in Ireland to oversee British interests. The tension between Ireland and Britain during Swift’s time and, particularly, during the period when A Modest Proposal was published was anchored on its unjust treatment in the economic policies of Britain as well as its status as a colony. This has been exacerbated by the English treatment of the Irish. By 18th century, Britain came to regard Irish Catholics as a serious threat to the Protestant monarchy and that Ireland itself was increasingly viewed as some platform for the creation of trouble in England. This led to the enactment of a series of penal laws that sought to confine the majority of the Irish Catholics into adverse circumstance and relative poverty. The Penal Laws denied many civil rights to the bulk of the Irish population, making the handful Protestant population – members of the established church- the sole beneficiary of the modest Irish economic growth (McKernan & McQuade, 12). Swift has also been influenced by fellow Anglo-Irish intellectuals such as his friend John Locke and William Molyneaux. The latter’s work called The Case of Ireland’s Being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England, is specifically cited as one of those literature that have impacted Swift’s own writings. This publication “questioned the subordination of the Irish Parliament to that at Westminster, calling it bad law as well as unfair” (Hollis 72). All in all, the tension that has been highlighted in A Modest Proposal between Ireland and Britain was mostly economic in nature. However, the socio-political implications of his satirical criticism were obvious and widely understood. The satire reflected the Irish dissatisfaction on the management of their affairs. It demonstrated an attack on the exploitation, greed and injustices of the English policies. As always, with A Modest Proposal, Swift demonstrated how he came to be regarded as an Irish champion taking the cudgels of the Irish peasantry, courageously denouncing the English misrule on the country. Bibliography Hollis, Daniel. The history of Ireland. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. McKernan, Michael and McQuade, Owen. Northern Ireland Yearbook 2005: A Comprehensive Reference Guide to the Political, Economic and Social Life of Northern Ireland. London: The Stationery Office, 2005. Mercier, Vivian. The Irish Comic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962. Swift, Jonathan. The works of Jonathan Swift, Volume 4. Dublin: George Faulkner, 1762. Wright, Julia. A Companion to Irish Literature. John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Read More