Some Modest Proposals

Abstract

The great English writer, Jonathan Swift (1965), wrote an essay entitled “A Modest Proposal,” in which he suggested that the Irish could reduce the famine then plaguing their country by eating their young children. The result was, not surprisingly, an uproar against Swift for his sarcasm and indifference toward the suffering of the Irish people. The title of this chapter is borrowed from Swift because the “modest proposals” suggested in this chapter may seem hostile to some.