Gulliver's Travels Study Guide

Gulliver's Travels, a misanthropic satire of humanity, was written in 1726 by Jonathan

Swift. Like many other authors, Swift uses the journey as the backdrop for his satire. He
invents a second author, Captain Lemuel Gulliver, who narrates and speaks directly to the
reader from his own experience. The original title of Swift's novel was Travels into Several
Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a
Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships.
Gulliver's name probably is an allusion to King Lemuel of Proverbs 31, who was a weak-minded
prophet. Swift may also be connecting his character to a common mule, a half-ass, half-horse
animal that is known for being stubborn and stupid. A gull is a person who is easily fooled or
gullible. At the same time, Gulliver represents the everyman with his average intelligence and
general good humor. The reader is able to identify with him and join him in his travels.

Even though Swift constantly alludes to events that were happening while he was alive, the story
rings true today, bringing light to our own societal issues and to patterns of human nature.
Throughout Gulliver's voyages, Swift goes to great lengths to scrutinize, parody, and satire
various aspects of human, and often English, society. He does this in two ways, first by
comparing humanity's ways with those of cultures decidedly beneath it (such as
the Yahoos and the Lilliputians); second, by comparing humanity with cultures that are far
superior in intellect and political ideals (such as the Houyhnhnms).
Gulliver embarks on four distinct journeys, each of which begins with a shipwreck and ends with
either a daring escape or a congenial decision that it is time for Gulliver to leave. The societies
Gulliver comes into contact with help him (and the reader) to examine his own culture more
closely. When Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726, this examination of English culture was
not appreciated. The novel was highly controversial because of the light in which it presented
humanity-and more specifically, the English. When the novel was first published, Swift's identity
was hidden because of the novel's volatile nature. The people who saw that the book made it into
print also cut out a great deal of the most politically controversial sections, about which Swift
became extremely frustrated. In a letter written under the pseudonym of Gulliver, Swift shows
his annoyance with the edits made to his novel without his consent: "I hope you will be ready to
own publicly," he writes, "whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent
urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels . . . .
But I do not remember I gave you power to consent that anything should be omitted, and much
less that anything should be inserted." The version of the novel read today is complete.

Part of what has helped Gulliver's Travels to persevere since Swift's time has been its appeal to
people of all ages. The book has been read by countless children and has been made into more
than one children's movie. At the same time, it has been widely critiqued and studied by literary
scholars and critics, politicians, and philosophers. In addition, much like the works of
Shakespeare, the comedy of the novel has something for people of all intellectual levels, from
toilet humor to highbrow satires of political processes and of ideas.