Quote 81
Secondly, the poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown. (21)
Irish tenants frequently had to find alternative methods of paying rent, since money was scarce.
Quote 82
Thirdly, […] the nation's stock will be thereby increased fifty thousand pounds per annum […] and money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture. (22)
Swift raises an interesting point: are children the only "goods" entirely owned by Irish peasants, since they can't lay claim to their own land?
Quote 83
Many other advantages might be enumerated: for instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef; the propagation of swine's flesh (26)
It doesn't look like the wealthy differentiate between types of meat. Beef, swine, child—all are precious commodities in A Modest Proposal.
Quote 84
Supposing that one thousand families in this city would be constant customers for infants' flesh (27)
Since the narrator has already estimated the number of children for sale, it stands to reason that he would estimate the number of greedy families. Notice the relatively small number of wealthy families (1,000) compared to children designated for food (120,000).
Quote 85
Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: […] of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury; of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women (28)
In this passage, Swift specifically addresses greed in women. Why would this be of particular interest to him?
Quote 86
For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender a consistence to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it. (30)
The narrator alludes to the fact that children would have to be consumed rapidly, since they don't keep well. Spoiled children, anyone?
Quote 87
First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for one hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. (32)
A Modest Proposal is written almost entirely in two voices: Swift's and the anonymous narrator's. In this passage, the narrator imagines how his readers might react to his proposal. Can this be interpreted as a third narrative voice?
Quote 88
I desire those politicians who dislike my overture […] that they will first ask the parents of these mortals whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided […] the oppression of the landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade (34)
In the final paragraphs, Swift reminds us of specific examples of greed. How does this impact your final impression of A Modest Proposal?
Quote 89
These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to […] beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who as they grow up, […] leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain (1)
Swift suggests that children who grow up blaming wealthy Protestants may eventually take extreme measures. After the Glorious Revolution, when James Francis Edward Stuart was deposed from the crown, many feared a Catholic army would restore him to power.
Quote 90
For we are told by a grave author […] that there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than any other season; therefore, reckoning a year after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual because the number of popish infants is at least three to one in the kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage of lessening the number of papists among us. (13)
Swift ridicules Protestant fears about the number of Catholic children in Ireland.
Quote 91
For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of papists, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies, and who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good Protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an Episcopal curate. (20)
Get ready for some more satire. Swift suggests that poor Irish mothers are evading work for the sole purpose of creating a Catholic army.
Quote 92
Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: […] of quitting our animosities and factions, nor act any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken. (28)
Swift refers to Roman Emperor Titus's invasion of Jerusalem in this passage. Because religious factions were fighting at the time of invasion, Titus had no troubles capturing the city. Sound familiar?