Question

Read this sentence from Jonathan Swift’s /A Modest Proposal/.

Answer 1

Answer:  Greedy Irish property owners exploit the helpless poor.

In "A Modest Proposal," Swift proposes to deal with the problem of poverty in Ireland by eating poor Irish children. This, he argues, will both reduce poverty, and provide rich landlords with a delicious source of food. His purpose in writing the satire is to call attention to the abuses of the poor class by the gentry. In this passage, he argues that eating the poor children is only natural for the greedy, rich class as they have already "devoured" the poor parents (by constantly exploiting and abusing them).

Answer 2

Swift is making the point that "Greedy Irish property owners exploit the helpless poor." In "A Modest Proposal" he sets out a satirical plan to solve food shortages by eating children. In this line he is making the assertion that landlords have already "devoured most of the parents" not in a literal sense. He is saying that landlords have taken advantage of, and exploited their tenants to such an extant that the next step of devouring their children as food is only logical, and not that much more abhorrent.