The Assignment Question: Define satire and examine how it functions in Gullivers Travels:

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Satire within Gullivers Travels

Numerous literary works either poetry, drama or fiction are presented throughout the idea
of satire. This technique represents one of the most permanent devices to create a type of humour
in the mind of the audience. Satire helps the author to achieve hybrid objectives within the same
text. For example, the writer could present his/her ideology within a type of humour. Satire is
used in literature as a way of expressing moral outrage at contemporary life. It also helps to
create a kind of criticism to particular ideas within the society where the writer lives. Throughout
satire the writer could deliver his/her message to the audience attractively and humorously. Satire
can be also realized as a genre. Actions, events, characters within the novel are exposed by
means of irony to bring development of the plot (Harry, 1991). For any reader, satire is witty. It
is often very funny. However, for any writer the purpose of satire is not to make readers laugh
but to criticize an event, an individual or a group in a clever manner. One of those writers is
Jonathan Swift who composed the novel of Gullivers Travels. His style is recognized as satire
within the novel.
The novel of Gullivers Travels was entitled as Travels Into Several Remote Nations
of the World. But its familiar name now is taken from the main character, Gulliver. This
character is plays the role of a surgeon who travels when his business fails. He goes on four
voyages. After each voyages Gulliver returns to his wife, Mary. The functional load of Swifts
satire is not limited but fully provable in the contemporary analysis of the fictional discourse.
Satire in the novel arises from contrasting between the appearance and reality of the characters. It
is also between what Gulliver says and what he really means to convey. It is created also

throughout what Gulliver thinks himself to be and what he really is. The character of Gulliver
produces a comic effect to amuse the reader. Satirically, ideas Gulliver satires philosophical,
political, religious, literary issues in the contemporary society (Daiches, 1969). In Gullivers
Travels there is a abundant use of satire where swift carries the audience from the country of
the dwarfs where people who are no more than six inches in height to that of the giants. In the
end he carries the audience to the country of the yahoos and of the noble horses. Mankind cuts a
sorry figure in all these strange countries to make himself a master of irony. In each case the
author gives the audience a portrayal of human beings themselves though the description of the
various kinds of residents of the different countries, (Baugh and Cable (2002).
In part one, Gulliver seems to be bourgeois who is primarily interested in money,
acquisitions, and achievement. Gulliver says My Father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire .
. . . my Father now and then sending me small Sums of Money. . . . by the Assistance of him and
my Uncle John . . . I got Forty Pounds. It is as a type of satire from this class of the society
(Gullivers Travels, Part.1). It is also shown through how this life goes around these desires. It is
clear through the phrase of

small Estate. It means that there is no hope of inheriting

something. He satires that there is romantic attachments. This lack of an emotional inner life is
traceable throughout lives of several persons. In the second part, there is also a strong satire from
polices of a large number of government systems within several countries. It is throughout the
conversation between Gulliver and the king of Brobdingnag. Gulliver he knew no Reason, why
those who entertain Opinions prejudicial to the Publick, should be obliged to change, or should
not be obliged to conceal them. And, as it was Tyranny in any Government to require the first, so
it was Weakness not to enforce the second. Here the king has a sable belief that people own the
right to their beliefs. But they do not the right to express their beliefs at will. It could be said that

there is a favor of suppressing all social criticism entirely by Gulliver. All of the audience could
understand this conversation between the two characters as a reference to certain issues of
censorship and freedom of speech. Also there is a reference to the equitable place of indirect
forms of criticism.
This novel is the work of an author to create satire on the life of the main character
throughout continual disappointment. Satire is his complaint and his defense against his enemies
and against humankind. Gulliver believes that persons are generally ridiculous and petty, greedy
and proud. People are blind to get the ideal of the mean. For example, in the last adventure of
Gulliver seems to be between symbols of sterile reason and symbols of gross sensuality. The
main idea to be understood here is that Man is a mixture of sense and nonsense. For me as one of
the novels audience, the author wants to say that man accomplishes much. However, man falls
far short of what he is and what he does. It is confirmed through the scene where Gulliver leaves
the Houyhnhnms I took a second leave of my master, but as I was going to prostrate myself to
kiss his hoof, he did me the honor to raise it gently to my mouth (Gullivers Travels, part 3).
The horses within the novel are idealized for Gulliver. The horses embody pure reason. Although
those horses are not human but figuratively they seem an ideal for humans. Swift presents them
as dull, unfeeling creatures, thoroughly unhuman. The horses take no pleasure in sex. They do
not overflow with either joy or melancholy. They are bloodless. Additionally within the novel,
science and reason needed limits for the author. Both of them needed a good measure of
humanism. They did not require absolute devotion. For example, the part of Houyhnhnms
embodiments of science and reason that are carried to ridiculous limits. So it could be said that
the public are given a new moral lens by presenting them new insights into the game of politics
and into the social follies of humans, (Baugh and Cable (2002).

Finally, the strongest satire within the novel refers to the phenomenon of colonization. It
is known that several countries had a revival to colonize other countries. It is the great brutish
empire that control several countries during the previous centuries.

Gulliver identifies the

reasons behind colonization saying they go on Shore to rob and plunder (Gullivers Travels,
Part.4). It represents the real intonations of colonizes. Also he explains the process of political
integration when the imperial forces control the colony, they declare that this colony becomes as
a part of their country and under their rule they see a harmless People, are entertained with
Kindness, they give the Country a new Name. He satirically presents the process of killing
those native who stand against the colonialist murder two or three Dozen of the Natives. The
tyranny of imperialism is set up a rotten Plank or a Stone for a Memorial. In my opinion, the
most dramatic speech in this novel to create the strongest satire is the earth reeking with the
Blood of its Inhabitants to show how the blood and souls of persons become cheep with no
value or price.( Algeo and Pyles (1990).
In conclusion, Swift

presents

Gullivers Travels as a type of social criticism

throughout a satirical style. What is mocked in the novel seems to be Gullivers nave and
unthinking acceptance of his own society. The author raises the issue of ideology where a social
arrangement could be criticized and improved. The idea of Dystopia or Anti-Utopia is described
through Gullivers eyes alone showing his hatred of everything human. Swift concerns through
Gulliver those values and criteria of a different world. Gulliver seems to be as an unmasked
character who reveals a grave face. However Gulliver satires himself showing his guilty of the
same hypocrisy that he condemns. He presents himself as unaware of his own human flaws
throughout his travels. In short, this writer managed to employ the device of satire that is comical
in its essence to criticize the social conventions and various human behaviours or beliefs.

References
1- Blamires, Harry, A History of Literary Criticism, Macmillan, London, 1991, part three, social
issues in literature, (p.112-130).
2- Daiches, David, A Critical History of English Literature, vol. 1, 2, London, Secker and
Warburg,London, 1969.
3- Daiches, David, The Novel and the Modern World, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1960.
4- Gulliver's Travels (1939): Max Fleischer's animated feature-length classic of Gulliver's
adventures in Lilliput. mostly for children.
5- The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960): a loose adaptation starring Kerwin Mathews and
featuring stop motion effects by Ray Harryhausen.
6- Algeo, John and Thomas Pyles (1990). The Origin and Development satire. 5th edition.
U.S.A.
7- Baugh, A. C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the irony. 5th edition. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2002.

Word count without extracts (1500)