Notes

1. +What is Johnathan Swift Modestly Proposing?

He is proposing that the penurious children living on the streets can have a better purpose to better the lives of others, while also making life better for themselves. By remediating their lives, because their current way of life empirically leads them down a worse path in adulthood.

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2. What is the conceit? (A conceit is an extended metaphor upon which a text or passage is built and which often (and in this case) determines the form and structure of the piece) - 'the concept" of the work.

The conceit is the emphasis on the idea that children on the streets needs a better purpose that benefits all society. And that if only the upper class would help the problem, it would be solved relatively quickly.

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3. +What literary device does Swift is throughout (other than conceit and metaphor)?

Satire work - He dehumanizes people, specifically women, in one sentence, in which he compares them to animals by calling them "breeders." This is supposed to illuminate the cruelty of how the impoverished are treated.

And Swift was also a popular satirical writer of his age at the time. He also uses irony and sarcasm with human life to get his points across.

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4. +What two metaphors does Swift use within the essay? What is their effect? (how do
they affect your understanding of his message?).

a) When he says "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children." When he says that sentence, he is using a metaphor with the word "devouring," as if landlords are literally devouring them. When in reality, he means to say that landlords are monetarily destroying the parents, leaving children without homes.
b) "A child dropped from its dam." He means to compare how children are born and how children are literally dropped from a dam. But the "dropped from a dam" part is to say that when the children are born, they are immediately born to a terrible life.

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5. +Swift was of the upper-class and was a well known writer and commentator of the time,
how do you think this was received by his readers?

Back then, in the 1600 and 1700s, the upper class really ignored the issues of the bottom-class. Most of the upper class who read about his "Proposal" would most likely not care and disregard it as an insult taken because, clearly, the upper class doesn't care about anything until it directly affects them. So these issues that he included in his writing weren't taken seriously, and would be directed right back at him because he was one of the upper-class. And someone like him writing about something that he wrote would be regarded as hypocrisy, as if a wealthy person can't discuss the issues in society.