A Modest Proposal Group
Question:
What is the “great town” that the narrator refers to in the opening paragraph of "A Modest Proposal"?
Answers:
-
accessteacher Teacher
High School - 10th GradeeNotes Editor
Posted by accessteacher on Sunday September 27, 2009 at 7:16 AMThis famous satirical essay begins:
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.
The setting of this essay is Ireland, and therefore the city referred to in the first sentence is Dublin, the capital of Ireland. The essay was written in the 1720s during the Irish famine where crops had been so poor that the Irish could not afford to pay the rents demanded by their English landlords. The essay therefore speaks much of the relationship between the English and the Irish through its satirical solution to the problem.
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
