A Modest Proposal By Jonathan Swift

DEFINE: 1.Animosity 2.Deference 3.Deplorable 4.Emulation 5.Encumbrance 6.Expedient

7.Perpetual 8.Prodigious 9.Proficiency 10.Rudiment

Answer the following in COMPLETE sentences:

1. According to the background what happened in Ireland during the 1720s?

2. What did Swift do in order to try to convince the Irish to resist the oppression?

3. What is verbal irony? Give an example.

4. According to paragraph 1, what issues are of concern to the speaker?

5. List three things that happen to children whose parents are forced to beg.

6. In paragraph 2, what does the speaker state is the problem of Ireland?

7. What solution does he think would make a country so grateful, it would erect a statue to the
problem solver?

8. How long does the speaker reckon a mother can support a baby at no cost? At what age,
then, would the speaker's solution apply?

9. What two terrible deeds will the speaker's solution stop from happening?

10. How many children are born in Ireland each year who cannot be provided for, according to
the speaker?

11. List three things small children are too young to do that would help them support
themselves.

12. The speaker has learned that children are not of any use as servants until what age? What
price do their parents get for selling them as indentured servants? How does that compare to
how much parents have already spent in feeding and clothing children?

13. What has the speaker learned about one-year-old babies? From whom has he learned this?

14. What is the writer, Swift, slyly suggesting about Americans?

15. What is the speaker's "modest" proposal?

16. How many children does the speaker think would be available?

17. How many pounds would a child increase in weight in its first year?

18. The speaker suggests the food will be "dear" or expensive, and therefore proper for
landlords. How is this a jab at the English landlords of the Irish estates?

19 .Why will year-old babies be plentiful in March?

20. How much profit does the speaker think a landlord would make on each child?
21. What additional use can be made for those who are frugal?

22. Where will the children be "prepared"?

23. What refinement does the "very worth person" and "true lover of his country" suggest?
Does Swift intend for the audience to see this person as worthy?

24. How does Swift criticize Americans again?

25. What two groups does the speaker refuse to worry about?

26. What is the first listed advantage of his plan?

27. What other religious group does the speaker mention?

28. What are the advantages mentioned in his plan?

29. How would mothers act differently? Husbands?

30. How does the speaker think the carcasses would be distributed?

31. Why might there be an objection? What is his response?

32. The speaker says, "Let no man talk to me of other expedients" or of other solutions to
Ireland's terrible poverty and then goes on to list these other solutions. In reality, these are
Swift's sly way of sneaking in some "real" solutions. List any FIVE of the solutions mentioned.

33. Why will the speaker's solution be good for Ireland only?

34. What five hardships does he list that the people of Ireland must endure?

35. What, according to the last paragraph, are the speaker's four motives in suggesting the
"modest proposal"?

36. What proof does he give that he cannot profit from this plan?

37. How does Jonathan Swift use satire in A Modest Proposal? Could you give some examples

38. What is the main point of A Modest Proposal?