Unvieling the satire of Swift

A detailed Summary of Unvieling the satire of Swift

To generations of schoolchildren, Gulliver's Travels has been a delightful visit to a faraway fantasy kingdom. Upon a closer look, Gulliver's Travels is found to be a potentially critical and very insightful piece, satirizing the political and social systems of eighteenth-century England. During the eighteenth-century there was an upheaval of commercialization in London, England, resulting in a change in attitude and thought in English society. It was an attempt by the middle class to obtain the dignity and splendor of the upper class, which resulted in the English society holding themselves in high regards as an elite society of mankind. Jonathan Swift satirizes English society in many ways, using metaphors to reveal his disapproval of it. Swift makes comments addressing specific topics as current political controversies as well as universal concerns like the moral degeneration of man. Swift uses graphic representations of the body and its functions to reveal to the reader that grandeur is merely an illusion and a facade to hide behind. Swift was one of the greatest satirists of his age and Gulliver's Travels is probably the apex of his art.

Gulliver's Travels is the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon who has a nu

Although Gulliver is too big to perceive them in detail, he judges the country's inhabitants to be as perfect and innocent as their toy-like appearances. The intelligence and organizational abilities of the Lilliputians at first impress Gulliver. This brings Swift to the essential conflict of Book I: the naive, ordinary, but compassionate "Everyman" at the mercy of an army of people with "small minds." Since the Lilliputians are technologically adept, Gulliver does not yet see how small-minded the Lilliputians are. Swift has developed his novel in such a way that, as his aspersions harshen and intensify, so do Gulliver's actions and attitudes.

In book II, or the second voyage, Gulliver faces quite an opposite situation. Gulliver finds himself in a world where everything is twelve times its expected size. In this situation, Gulliver is now the inferior, and due to his miniature size, he is able to examine the human body in a more detailed manner. Somewhat hardened by his unfavorable experiences on Lilliput, Gulliver approaches the Brobdingnagians from the outset with some degree of suspicion and contempt. Although it appears to the reader that this race is far more benevolent and trustworthy

Gulliver's Travels is a satirical novel of the eighteenth-century English society, a society with superficial ideas of grandeur and nobility. Through clever representations, Jonathan Swift successfully humbles this society's pride and human vanity. He reveals the flaws in their thinking by reducing them to what they are, human beings, who, like other human beings, have merely adopted a superficial, self-righteous attitude. In doing so, Swift makes a broader statement about mankind today. Despite all the self-acclaimed advances in civilization and

mber of adventures, which comprises four sections or "books". In Book I, or the first voyage, his ship is blown off course and shipwrecked. Gulliver finds himself in a land of miniature people where his giant size is meant as a metaphor for his superiority over the Lilliputians. This metaphor represented England's belief that it had superiority over other cultures. Swift goes on to demonstrate that despite his belief in superiority, Gulliver is not as great as he makes himself out to be when the forces of nature call upon him. Gulliver says to the reader that before hand he, "was under great difficulties between urgency and shame", and after the deed says that he felt, "guilty of so uncleanly an action" (Jonathan Swift, Nortaon Anthology of English Literature, New York: Norton, 1986, pg. 2024). By revealing to the reader Gulliver's shame in carrying out

people who perform the rope dance are people seeking to acquire or maintain a higher position at the court, so this is actu

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Approximate Word count = 1857
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English