"A Modest Proposal" is set in Ireland, approximately contemporaneous to the text's publication in 1729. This comes just nine years after the Declaratory Act, which gave the British Parliament and House of Lords the ability to legislate and adjudicate for Ireland, respectively. Swift's satirical essay is in direct response to British control and exploitation of the Irish people, which began as early as the 12th century with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. "A Modest Proposal" also takes place against the backdrop of European colonial violence, which had reached a fever pitch in the course of Swift's lifetime. Britain specifically developed and honed its tactics for colonization using Ireland as a test case, later expanding these methods to exploit people across the world.
This period of colonial violence coincided with the European Enlightenment, a literary, scientific, and cultural movement that emphasized rationality and reason above all as methods for understanding and synthesizing the surrounding world. Within the context of this movement, the persuasive essay form thrived, featuring logic and argumentation as the most important aspects of human thought. "A Modest Proposal" exposes these strains of Enlightenment rationality, purposefully presenting an argument that fails to logically cohere. The Proposer, in effect, has "failed" to reason properly; hence, he becomes the object of criticism from both Swift and the readers' perspectives.
