Well, I just finished reading Jonathan Swift’s, A Modest Proposal and I wanted to respond to it. When I started the reading, I honestly thought it was going to be some dry text about some idea that really did not interest me…but this is how it actually went :
*reading, reading, getting the idea about the famine in Ireland and how mothers spend their time looking for food for their starving families. Then Swift introduces the question of how can kids be useful in society ? They can’t work, can’t build things, and they can only rarely steal; basically they’re not valuable until around 12 years old.
*I continue skimming the passage, still thinking its not really going to get that interesting.
*I pass the part where he says, “a young healthy child well nursed is, at year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food.” Now, I don’t get why I didn’t automatically respond to these words, so I just kept reading until I got to, “Infant’s flesh will be in season throughout the year.”
Now imagine my mind doing a double take. All I’m thinking is “Lmao this guy is proposing to eat kids ! ”
Granted, this definitely sparked my interest in the text and I got excited to finish reading and I actually really liked it. I looked it up online to make sure I understood the meaning behind it, and I think this was a really clever approach on how to introduce a topic to readers. It was like he used Pratt’s idea of contact zones to take on an original viewpoint on the topic rather than the usual lecture.
