Consider Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels As A Satire

Jonathan Swift’s satirical masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels is a celebrated prose work in the form of a travel book. Swift’s real purpose in writing this book was to lash humankind for its follies, absurdities, and evil deeds. 

The writer employs irony, mockery, ridicule, sarcasm, and even invective as the weapons of attack, which he illustrates through different stages. He is a master of both corrosive and comic satire. 

What Are Comic And Corrosive Satires?

While comic satire is amusing and makes us laugh, corrosive satire is severe and scornful. The account of Gulliver’s first voyage offers several examples of comic satire. The passage dealing with the high heels and low heels, the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians is a perfect example of this. 

The corrosive satire in the same voyage is evident in treating Gulliver, who, instead of being treated with gratitude, is impeached. Gulliver’s Travels contains both these kinds of satire throughout. However, it is acclaimed as an allegorical satire in which personalities and institutions are attacked not directly but veiled.

Swift’s Satires in Book I, II, And III of Gulliver’s Travels

A careful analysis of Gulliver’s Travels reveals that the use of satire in different parts differs significantly. The book I of Gulliver’s Travels is mainly a satire on English politics and politicians, English monarchs, and theological disputes. 

In the second and third books, the satire becomes moral and intellectual, while in the fourth book, the whole of humankind becomes the target of attack. Swift proves through his satire that man is physically deformed, intellectually insane, and politically most despicable. 

Swift Aims at Exposing England’s Corrupt Political System

Through Gulliver’s admittance into the court of Lilliput, Swift gets an opportunity to unmask the corrupt political system prevailing in England. The ironic parallels drawn between the practice of the court of Lilliput and that of England very mercilessly and effectively lashes out the viciousness of the dominant authority. 

Swift points out that the cause of their weaknesses lies in their moral laxity, and a man without morality is nothing but a Yahoo. The Lilliputians are so polluted that they do not even hesitate to suspect Gulliver of adultery with one of the noble ladies or request him to destroy the state of Blefescu. 

Brobdingnagian Giants Support Gulliver’s Moral Ideal in Book II

Gulliver’s refusal to enslave the Blefescudians echoes Swift’s own hatred for tyranny. In Book II, we meet the people of Brobdingnag, who are giant in structure, presenting a glaring contrast to the pygmies of Lilliput. 

The Brobdingnagians stand for Swift’s moral ideal. They are a positive race with superior morality, including good sense, gratitude, and kindness. However, we are repelled by the coarseness and ugliness of the human body. 

Swift Portrays Sarcasm Through King’s Mockery of Human Race

The description of the monstrous breasts of a woman sucking her child is confirmed, repulsive. The different interpretation and explanations of great scholars to their king about Gulliver’s derivative height is intensely satirical, or precisely, sarcastic. When Gulliver gives an account of his own country’s life, trades, religion, and politics, the king laughs out and asks Gulliver whether he is a whig or tory. 

The king remarks how contemptible a human race is turning to one of his ministers, represented by such diminutive insects as Gulliver. The king mocks Gulliver’s human race- a race consisting of insects compared to the people of Brobdingnag. 

Swift’s Bitterest Satire in Gulliver’s Travel about A Notorious Human Race

The bitterest satire spurts when the king remarks on the English parliament, the English courts of justice, and other institutions in England. He considers the history of Gulliver’s country to be of a series of conspiracies, rebellions, murderers, revolutions, and massacres. He believes that all these results from hypocrisy, cruelty, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition. 

The king finally comments that the bulk of the people of Gulliver’s country are the most ominous race of little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the earth’s surface. These comments have been viewed as Swift’s own cynical utterances about mankind in general.

Swift’s Satire in Book III of Gulliver’s Travel Is Amusing And Entertaining

The satire in Book III is rather light-hearted and amusing. Here, Swift makes fun of the inhabitants whose sole interests are music and geometry and who cannot afford to have time to make love to their wives. The useless experiments and researchers greatly amuse us. 

Book III presents a fantasy of politics and the abuse of reason. In this flying island, the people are governed scientifically and not morally. Swift satirizes the apprehension of the same English astronomers and the experiments of the Royal Society of England. 

The writer bitterly satirizes meaningless historical research, the desire for immortality, the arbitrariness, whim, and caprices of monarchs through the custom of licking the floor and crawling on the belly. 

Satire in Gulliver’s Travel Meets with A Climax in Book IV

Book IV of Gulliver’s Travels is the intellectual and emotional climax of the satire, containing one of the most corrosive and offensive satires on mankind. In fact, it is an angry denunciation of humankind. 

Gulliver feels so furious with the follies and crimes of human beings that he condemns them all together. He portrays the horror of Houyhnhnms’ land as far superior to human beings both mentally and morally. 

In this part, Swift intends the Yahoos to represent human beings. Gulliver describes them as abominable and feels astonished and horrified to discover the physical resemblance between them and the human beings. 

Swift Compares Among Yahoos, Houyhnhnms, And European Countries

The Yahoos are brutal, untouchable, and mischievous, while the Houyhnhnms exalt them morally since their language consists of no lies or falsehood. The satire deepens when Gulliver narrates to the master Houyhnhnm, the events and happenings in his own country and other European countries. 

Gulliver explains that the ambition of kings and sometimes the corruption of ministers often cause wars in European countries. His description exposes the evils of war and the wickedness of lawyers and judges. The human race is degraded in our estimation by how Gulliver describes his countrymen. It is further degraded by contrast with the noble Houyhnhnms and resemblance to the beastly Yahoos.

The master Houyhnhnm explains the behavior and attitude of Yahoos and Houyhnhnms, intending as a severe criticism of the human race. He speaks of Yahoo’s love for shining stones, their gluttony, and the lascivious behavior of the female Yahoos. 

By contrast, the Houyhnhnms are rational beings, following principles in life and solving their problems through discussion and meetings. Gulliver’s heart overflows with great admiration for the Houyhnhnms and great hatred and disgust for humanity. He even desires never to return to his family. 

Final Thoughts

Though much of Gulliver’s condemnation of the human race may be attributed to Swift himself, we should not identify Swift completely with Gulliver. Based on Book IV, Swift may certainly be notable as a misanthrope. 

Nonetheless, he is not a misanthrope of the extremist kind, which Gulliver represents at the close of the book.

Thus, Swift’s satire becomes the most poignant in Book IV, expressing his misanthropy in clear terms. In the first two books, the nature of satire was milder in tone and treatment, while Book III was essentially a fantasy.

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