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Gulliver’s Travels as a satire

The mobility of Swift’s reputation as a priest of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland which

took a lower carve with tags such as blasphemous and irreligious due to his successive release of

books such as A Tale of a Tub, his first release which brought down controversies and lots of

political and socio-religious conflicts. Gulliver’s Travels is no exception. Much of the material

reflects his political experiences of that prevailing decade. Throughout the text, Swift alters his

satiric strategy, and the reader must adapt to the author’s various devices while maintaining a

comprehension of the text in its complete form.

It is a novel in four parts recounting Gulliver’s four voyages to fictional exotic lands.

Satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. His travels is first

among diminutive people–the Lilliputians, then among enormous giants–people of Brobdingnag,

then among idealists and dreamers and finally among horses. Each book has a different theme,

but their common trait is to deflate human nature. Gulliver's Travels has been the recipient of

several designations: from Menippean satire to a children's story, from proto-science fiction to a

forerunner of the modern novel.

Just before the Book I begins, the inclusion of ‘A LETTER OF CAPT. GULLIVER, TO

HIS COUSIN SYMPSON’, supports the rumour to be true regarding Swift being a hoaxer. The

letter is dated ‘April 2, 1727’, the day after April Fool’s Day perhaps a wry reference to the fact

that this travel book is a hoax. Even the very beginning of the book 1, “My father had a small

Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons. He sent me to Emanuel-College in

Cmbridge… “, this reads like a parody of the manner of voyage authors reporting personal

details, and of the start of the Protestant Dissenter Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. He uses the

character Gulliver, a common Englishman with no discernible personal agenda, in a variety of

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contrived situations with fantastical species and races of human beings. Thus even before the

very start of the book Swift uses multiple hidden satirical elements.

Gulliver in Lilliput deals with his relatively large human excrement, and how the

Lilliputians must deal with that awkward inconvenience, is dealt with several satirical

undertones. Swift uses the unpleasantness of Gulliver’s feces as a satiric technique to parody the

hubris of an ignorant European society and the absurd façade of propriety that he feels them to

possess towards situations that merit attention. Lilliputians will go so far as to charge Gulliver

with a crime after he saves the Palace from a fire by extinguishing it with his urine; they claim

this heroic gesture, thought valiant, is punishable by death. While there are several

interpretations for the Lilliputians, and specifically the Queen’s response to the actions of

Gulliver, erupt humour among the readers. This episode can be seen as a metaphor for the Tories'

illegal peace treaty; having done a good thing in an unfortunate manner.

Human pride was vigorously mocked by Swift when Gulliver found himself under the

care of a nine-year-old girl in Book II, who, though affectionate and solicitous towards him,

obliged him to play the role of a docile and a slightly undignified doll. There were several

different types of Brobdingnagians – the trustworthy and loving Glumdaclitch, her shrewd and

exploiting father, the mischievous school-boy and the curious, gawking crowds that came to see

Gulliver. The Brobdingnagians were interestingly similar to humans, despite their size and the

same virtues and vices as accustomed by humans. Swift exposed the human limitations by

ridiculing typical human skills and accomplishments; and showed the similarity between the

tricks performed by intelligent pets and Gulliver’s exhibitions of his talents. Gulliver was shown

to the visitors in exchange for money on the Market Day. Gulliver was soon sold to the Queen,

who was “surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive an animal” (89) and it was a
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direct blow at the prodigious pride of human beings. Brobdingnagians’ response to Gulliver was

very much like Gulliver’s response to the Lilliputians. Gulliver explained laws, manners,

religion, government and learning of Europe to the King, which made him observe “how

contemptible a thing human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as”

(93).Now it was Gulliver’s turn to defend his native country against the all too just accusations

of an honorable and upright ruler. Swift’s satire was to view one’s own country and customs

with Brobdingnagians’ eyes. He was now able to recognize the contemptibility of human folly.

Even after all the pains and indignities Gulliver went through, Swift pointed out Gulliver’s

extreme struggle and continual attempt to prove himself as a man. All his encounters,

misfortunes and predicaments clarified Swift’s contention that it was only his physical size that

separated Gulliver from the Brobdingnagians. Swift, through Gulliver, showed how all the

human beings were insecure beings or animals vainly striving for attention and protection from

the more powerful ones.

Gulliver’s first two voyages had done little in changing his concepts of human nature.

Swift’s most interesting description was provided through the introduction of the most unusual

country, the flowing island of Laputa, which flew over Balnibarbi. Swift satirized England’s

government where the floating island symbolized how England never interacted with its people

but instead only dealt with the punishments and laws without considering the welfare of the

people. Swift satirized the self-satisfaction of the Europeans of their idea of being the greatest

race in the universe and Brogbdingnagians’ land mirrored this. Gulliver detailed the bizarre

characteristics of the inhabitants of the Flying Island. His astonishment disguised Swift’s satiric

disapproval of the people’s involvement in abstract thinking that they were unable to manage

their normal responsibilities and social activities. The Laputans could not carry on sensible
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conversations or behave with common courtesy towards each other; their dependence on the

mathematics, philosophical and astronomical science left them with no room in their lives for

knowledge and concern with other arts and social graces. Swift was not against science but he

showed his concern over the impractical, speculative science which he felt distracted men from

discovering how to improve living conditions or enrich men’s enjoyment of their lives on earth.

In Laputa, Gulliver went around in clothes that did not fit him since the Laputans were more

concerned with the theory than practical. They could not build adequate housing and were

awkward and unhandy in everyday affairs. Gulliver chided the Laputans for their narrow-

mindedness; the King for example, was disapproving of the customs and intellectual pursuits

which differed from his own. The Laputans’ crime was that they were unwilling to learn from

example. The impression of the King’s seal was of “A King lifting up a lame beggar from the

Earth” (204). The King had no regards for public welfare; yet his seal was without any

resentment at its deception. People seemed to have forgotten the true meaning of justice.

In Part IV, Swift uses the juxtaposition of Gulliver with the rational Houyhnhnm to

intensify his satiric strategy. Since Swift’s ultimate goal is “to confront man, with his claim to be

a rational animal, with a literally rational animal” (quot. in Mahoney 4); yet while many literary

scholars over the years have questioned the appeal of the obtuse Houyhnhnms, these

interpretations of “Part IV” have missed Swift’s larger intention altogether. Since Swift clearly

views the state of European society as a cesspool of hypocrisy and glib self-satisfaction, he seeks

to challenge the status quo that man is an inherently rational animal. He creates a purely rational

animal, the Houyhnhnm, and then focuses the reader’s attention on the obvious contradictions

that exist between the rationality that Europeans think themselves to have and the clearly

reasonable and rational Houyhnhnms. Aside from the “faintly repellent qualities” (Brady 363)
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that exude from the Houyhnhnms in the descriptions of Gulliver, for the most part Swift has

designed the Houyhnhnms to represent desirable concepts of applicable rationality, and Gulliver,

through his gratuitous condemnations of all facets of human existence, indirectly exalts these

mysterious animals throughout “Part IV.” For instance, when examining the causes of war in

Europe, Gulliver readily admits most of the causes to be contrived from the self-serving and

often villainous actions of princes, ministers, or other persons of authority. While these actions

are condemnable, they also appear to be completely irrational from Gulliver’s perspective, as he

explains to the master Houyhnhnm how conflicting viewpoints have “Cost many millions of

lives [. . .] Neither are any Wars so furious and bloody, or of so long Continuance, as those

occasioned by the Difference in Opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent” (207). By

emphasizing the absurdity in which millions have died, Swift has demonstrated quite clearly how

Europeans through their actions have become the antithesis of rational thought.

As a satire, Gulliver’s Travels is incredibly perceptive and effective, bordering on being a

pathological inquiry into the society and culture of Swift’s age. The text can be scrutinized under

the magnification of a historiographical understudy, but certainly one that is intensely satirical.
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Works Cited

Brady, Frank. “Vexations and Diversions: Three Problems in Gulliver’s Travels.” Modern

Philology, 75 (May 1978): 346-367.

Mahoney, Josh. “Swift’s shifting satiric strategy in Gulliver’s Travels”. Students Writing

Awards, 12 (2007) University of Northern Iowa. http://scholarworks.uni.edu/swa/12

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. Eds. Claude Rawson and Ian Higgins. New York: Oxford

University Press 2008. Print.

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. Ed, Albert J. Rivero. London: Norton, 2002. Print.