50 pages • 1 hour read
Jonathan SwiftA Modest Proposal
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1729A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
Reading Check
1. According to the narrator, what happens to the “helpless infants” when they grow up?
2. What are two advantages to the narrator’s scheme (Paragraph 4)?
3. Who is Psalmanazar?
4. Other than nutrition, for what else can babies be used?
5. What is the problem for young people who can find work?
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Simply put, what is the narrator’s “modest proposal?”
2. What are the six advantages of the proposal that the narrator lists?
3. What are some alternatives to the narrator’s proposal that he refutes in the essay?
4. According to the last line of the essay, how will the narrator be affected by the proposal?
Paired Resource
“The Fake Asian Who Fooled 18th-Century London”
- A 2014 article from The Atlantic on the controversy surrounding Psalmanazar (subscription may be required)
- Does the narrator’s reference to Psalmanazar discredit his own argument? If so, how?
Poverty in Ireland, 1837: A Hungarian's View
- A nonfiction account by Hungarian author Szegénység Irlandban on pre-famine Ireland
- Connects to the themes of Reform Efforts’ Failure to Address Income Inequality and The Dehumanizing Attitudes of the Rich Toward the Poor
- Compare Swift and Irlandban’s accounts.
Related Titles
By Jonathan Swift
