In "A Modest Proposal," why would Swift choose to have it be an American who first introduced the speaker to baby-eating? What stereotypes might we...

America had a mythical quality to Europeans of the early 18th Century, especially the ones who had never been there. It was a place where a penniless Irishman could go and make his fortune in the world. It was a place where an Old World man could go native and emulate the Indians, who were only slightly less mythical in the European imagination than gnomes.

Prior to the discovery of America, the European could imagine...

America had a mythical quality to Europeans of the early 18th Century, especially the ones who had never been there. It was a place where a penniless Irishman could go and make his fortune in the world. It was a place where an Old World man could go native and emulate the Indians, who were only slightly less mythical in the European imagination than gnomes.

Prior to the discovery of America, the European could imagine no greater freedom than to choose between two ruthless despots. Once they encountered Indians, they imagined a people who could drop in and out of society at will, wander the continent naked, hunt and gather at their leisure, and skip Church on Sunday. It wasn't a huge leap to imagine they would indulge in cannibalism, and that the hardy colonists who consorted with them would go native and follow suit. Swift played to this rather fanciful image when he attributed cannibalism to "a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London".