jonathan-swift
The proposal.
Having described the circumstances, the narrator next sets out his proposal and does so with the expectation that none should in the least be against it. Before doing so however, in an interesting confidence to the reading audience, he notes that the genesis for his idea was provided to him by an American acquaintance, thus avoiding the full responsibility for the radical course of action which follows. This final pre-proposal paragraph is crucial to his argument as it marks the introduction of the idea of children as a food source and the beginning of their objectification as the food is referred to as ‘it’:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
The narrator then returns to the business of analyzing how many children should be thus ‘employed’ and what their gender ratio should be. Using very logical comparisons with existing animal husbandry practices of the era, he determines that one sixth of the number of infants should be set aside for breeding, 1 male per four females, and that the remaining one hundred thousand be sold at one year of age to “persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom”. The crux of the proposal, or one of them, is the description of the care and preparations that will transform the infants into quality meals for well-to-do families. An incredibly ironic passage then, where the narrator explains who these well-to-do future consumers are:
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.
The clinical tone returns in the subsequent paragraph as the narrator begins a sarcastic diatribe stating when supplies of infant flesh will be abundant during the year, 9 months or so after the observance of lent by Catholics. He adds that since most children in the kingdom are Catholic, a secondary advantage of his plan is that the overall number of Catholics would be greatly reduced.
Expounding on his initial ideas about unfit parents and beggars, the narrator now includes most of the working population in the group. He also proceeds to outline how his proposal will have an impact on both the landlords(read English) and the children’s mothers themselves: (A Modest Proposal part 4)
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