A look into the life of Jonathan Swift (5)

In the early 1700s, Ireland was in economic turmoil.  It was controlled by England, which was mainly Protestant.  For this reason, the wealth and power was held by the Protestants of Ireland, the minority.  Most of the Irish were Catholic, and were living in extreme poverty.  Similar to the aristocrats living in Versailles, France in the 1600s and 1700s, the wealthy class in Ireland was relatively blind to, and did not understand, the plight of the poor.  The pervasive attitude among the upper-class, Protestant Irishmen was that the poor Catholics were a burden.  They did not seek to find a way to solve the issue of poverty, but instead wished they would disappear.

Jonathan Swift was a wealthy, Protestant man living in Ireland around this time.  In 1729, he mocked the opinion of wealthy Protestants in his satirical piece, "A Modest Proposal."  To highlight the ignorance of this class of people, Swift wrote that the upper classes should kill the poor children and use them for food and clothing.  Jonathan Swift's point of view was ironic, because he himself was not horribly affected by the tumultuous economic times.  This irony struck me as quite odd, and I decided to research more on Swift.

When Jonathan Swift was born in 1667, he did not have the same wealth that he eventually garnered by the time he wrote "A Modest Proposal."  His father died when he was just two months old, and Swift's mother struggled to raise him without a steady income.  Additionally, Jonathan Swift was constantly sick, adding to the struggle.  In hopes of bettering the situation, his mother gave Jonathan to his uncle who was a member of an attorney and judge group.  Jonathan was then able to enroll in a private school and receive a sound education that would create a pathway towards his later success.

Because Jonathan experienced the hardship of poverty first-hand, he did not share the same perspective as other wealthy men.  Instead, he was clearly bothered by their ignorance.  Jonathan Swift knew that the poor were still people, not just objects taking up space.  By writing "A Modest Proposal", Swift was able to grab the attention of both the wealthy Protestants and the poor Catholics.  Because he was well known in the religious community, his words were not ignored.  Jonathan's words spoke so loud that, even today, we see relevance in each and every one of them.