In "A Modest Proposal," are Swift and the narrator in agreement?

Definitely not! One of the key aspects of this excellent
satire is the way that Swift creates a persona and writes the essay as this persona. It
is actually a very interesting exercise to examine and analyse the character of the
narrator. Swift is careful to make his satire all the more outrageous by giving the
narrator the voice of a practical economic planner. This gives the narrator an air of
objectivity and common sense, even when he proposes the most monstrous of solutions. It
is this gap between the style and horrific content that gives this pamphlet the force
that it possesses. The narrator is obsessed about numbers, measurements and statistics,
and thus Swift goes beyond the issue of the Irish Famine to protest ultimately against a
statistical view of humanity. Once we start treating humans like numbers, as history has
shown on so many occasions, we begin to resemble monsters that could and would eat Irish
babies to "help" the famine. Swift of course takes a massive risk by writing this
pamphlet. He makes himself appear monstrous in order to explose the monstrous ideas and
views of others.

One aspect that is interesting is the way
in which Swift presents his own views about what should be done. These come towards the
end of this essay and are normally italicised to separate them from fiction. This is a
very important section to focus on as we see the division between the author and the
narrator and how the author has some very sensible ideas, that he obviously felt were
being ignored by the powers that be.