I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

• I feel like I am repeating myself, but now you can tell that this is a satire, especially since in the first paragraph he employs what appears to be quantitative research to back up his proposal about eating children. He makes it seem like they are animals, referring to them women as "breeders," and this deliberate dehumanization is again to say, "see what I'm doing? I am making a mockery out of this serious situation to show you guys that you in fact are being just as ridiculous." It becomes even more like a business transaction when he states: "a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity." This just adds to the humor and overall foolishness of the proposal. I say foolish because on the surface the proposal is just that, but really this is an incredibly smart piece of work underneath.
• What Swift is doing in this section is presenting readers with numbers and facts to persuade his argument/proposal. This exaggeration and the way he has presented the information is almost convincing. I always find that when numbers and facts are presented it can almost be legitimate.  The sentence, “I shall now therefore humbly purpose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection” is just before Swift is going to propose his 'unarguable' solution to everyones economic issues.
• It seems here that Swift is showing how much children are burdening the society; however, he is actually giving a number of how many children are effected and showing the distribution of wealth. He points out how large the lower class actually is.
• The reader at this point learns more of how this system works. How they keep some children around to grow up and continue the circle of life. The reader may begin to wonder, don't some mother's hide their children? Does everyone agree with this, mother's included? Reader may think it's odd how they say "only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born." The reader may start to wonder, do they not eat anything else? The reader may also wonder, what this community looks like since they "can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land..." A reader may find it odd how much it matters if the children can be beneficial, like why aren't the adults working and building a community like we have? The reader is being led to feel and think that this is so wrong on so many levels and that it is disturbing. The reader at this point can only expect to read of what the aut  hor will now propose on their own thoughts. This proposal is going to be disturbing too probably, since this whole story so far has been disturbing, the reader cannot expect anything else.  Swift's choice of words here keeps the reader engaged enough to want to know what his Modest Proposal is going to be. This story is so twisted, it is hard to not wonder what is going to be proposed next. This part of the story helps the reader understand more how this system works.
• By using math to demonstrate the amount of children born to poor parents, it seems like his plan is so well thought out that the reader will be easily convinced. Also, the math may help to confuse those who are less educated, and will simply believe his proposal because Swift seems intelligent enough to have found a math equation proving his point.   Also, by defining the usefulness of children under twelve only helps his point by demonstrating that the children are useless even if they do work and earn little to no money. So far, he has done very well in proving that the country would be better off without these children as they are useless to their parents and to the kingdom.
• When I read the first paragraph in this section, I find that Swift is writing like someone would talk. He rambles on and on, rearing off topic, and almost loses his train of thought entirely. To me, this adds to the sense of reality in the piece. This makes it seem like someone might actually propose this idea; of selling poor children to the rich.   Here, I'm sensing Swift's anger towards people proposing child labor as a solution to the economic suffering of poor families. It's foolish and terrible to think that someone would actually force a child, of any age, to work (even crazier to propose to sell them for food). It shouldn't matter how poor a family is, it should't matter how many poor families there are, it shouldn't matter how old the child is, a child should not be responsible to provide for their parents or anyone else. I got pretty wrapped up in this section, Swift was pretty successful in showing me how ridiculous the beliefs of some people are. I can just picture the "thousands of families" forcing their babies to work while they sit at home and complain about being poor.
• I feel that this exercise would be much more beneficial if I had not read the work already. Paying closer attention to his wording that in past readings I notice the carefree way that he is suggesting selling of children. Also he is constantly mentioning how children have no value to society.
• Again, some solid work by Swift here, selling his satire as serious stuff. He provides numbers and a thoughful analysis of how many children out there that cannot be taken care of. He also argues how other methods are ultimately not useful since they can't provide adults with any good talents and their going rate on the market is not very good.  Again the tone of the letter is serious and to the point, there is no indication that Swift is being anything but frank in this essay, which of course is entirely the point and to me indicates that Swift was a pretty talented writer.
• In this section, Swift takes the reader by the hand to lay his ground work for the argument to come, and the idea of bringing "statistics" in, or numbers, paired later with Ì have been informed by a principal gentleman,  and "I am assured by our merchants" and "humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection" -- aims to establish this narrator as an authority of sorts on this.    And if I didn't already know what his argument was, I would be drawn into reading on, and probably developing some hope for Ireland, because he's getting his readers to think: "oh, this guys knows what he's talking about, and sounds legitimate, and logic."
• Again, the poor children are spoken of as an object, or now moreso a commodity.  The use of the words "breeders" and pricing kids as a bad investment serves to say that even though they're real people, the treatment usually afforded begging children is the same as one would pay to a business transaction, essentially de-humanizing them.
• The voice convinces the reader that there are no other ways to solve the problem, and that all other voiced options are impossible.  He/she has set the reader up to believe that his proposal is the only option.  The reader is led to think that the voice has a great idea to solve all problems of poverty and protect the children from starvation.