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Satire in Gulliver’s Travel

Swift occupies a very distinctive place among his contemporaries for highlighting the
pungent and poignant realities of his time which regarded him as a master of corrosive
satire.
Gulliver's travel is the hall-mark of his such satirical approach which labeled swift a
neurotic and insane in the eyes of many critics.But he is a moralist despite his morbid
attitude towards society and man.

Gulliver's travel is abundant with different modes of satire.Jonathan Swift tears the veil
of smug complacency off to expose the realities for which people had blinded
themselves.In Gulliver's travel from voyage to voyage,there is a satire on;

1.Politic 2.Human physiognomy

3.Intellect 4.Moral shortcomings

Satire is a social criticism .Gulliver's travel is a comic satiric piece of work ever composed
by Jonathan Swift.The purpose of his satire is to change people's mind .Swift once stated
that,

'' satire is a sort of glass ,wherein beholders

do generally discovers everybody's face

but their own''.

Gulliver travel is a satire on four aspects of man; the physical, the political ,the
intellectual and the moral.The chief end of his satire is

‘’ to vex the world rather than divert it’’.

In the first voyage to Lilliput ,Swift satirizes the politics and political shenanigans
practiced in England through Lilliputians.He also satirizes the awarding of political offices
by leaping and creeping.Flimnap was the treasurer.He represents Sir Robert Walpole
who was the prime minister of England.Reldresal represents Lord Carteret.The ancient
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temple ,in which Gulliver was imprisoned,refers to West minister Hall In which Charles I
was condemned to death.The three silken threads refer to the various distinctions
conferred by king too his favourite.They bury their dead upside down.The putting out
fires by pissing annoys to Queen Anne.He also incurred the wrath of queen by writing
the book ‘’A Tale of Tub’’.The conflicts between the Big- Endians and the Little-
Endians represents the conflict between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants.High
heel and low heel represent Whig and Tory ;the two political parties.

In the second voyage to Brobdingnag , there is general satire on human

body ,talents and limitations .Gulliver reacts to coarseness and ugliness of human
body.When he gives an account of his country to the king,the king remarks that the
history of his country seems to be a series of
conspiracies ,rebellions ,revolutions ,murders and banishment.The king condemens the
fatal use of gun powder and the books written on the act of governing.He mocks the
human race of which Gulliver is representative.

‘’The most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature

ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the Earth’’.

Swift here ridicules human pride and pretensions.There is disgusting sight of women
with breast- cancer ,a man with a huge tumor on his neck and beggar with wooden
legs .But the most hateful sight is that of the lice crawling on their clothes and
bodies.The flies , rats , dogs, birds, utensils and human beings were of abnormal size
and strength.

In the third voyage to Laputa , there is a satire on on human mind,

science, philosophy and mathematics.The intellectuals and researchers are to much
busy in useless experiments and researches at the academy of Projectors in Lugado.Here
scientists are conducting experiments to extract beams of cucumbers, to convert
excrement into food ,to build houses from roof to foundations, to obtain silk from
cobwebs and to write books by machines ,not by using mind.

‘’Their heads were inclined either to the right or

to the left,one of theirs eyes turned inward and

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other directly up to zenith’’.

They invented many theories but , practically they were Utopian schemes .They were
also magicians. They used to talk with ghosts of the famous dead . Swift also satirizes
the historians and critics who distort facts and misinterpret great authors like Homer.

In the fourth voyage to Houyhnhnm, there is satire on moral short comings of human
beings .The description of yahoos is regrettable .According to Gulliver,

‘’ Yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts and the
more I came near them , the more hateful they grew ,’’

By contrast ,the Houyhnhnm are noble horses who are governed by reason ans lead an
ordered life.Gulliver informs the master Houyhnhnm about the grim situation of his
country .He speaks of numerous deadly weapon and numerous other ills like murder,
theft, pimping, forgery and rape .The master also describe lusty behaviour of the
Yahoos .The Houyhnhnm never indulge in carnal pleasures.They regulate their
pleasures .They regulate their population. Swift’s liking to the the Houyhnhnm and
hatred for the Yahoos made him misanthropist.He never wanted to return his home and
started hating his family and his friends .The butt of his satire are physical , political and
intellectual vices of the human beings.

Misanthropy in Gulliver’s travel

Gulliver travels is an anatomy and criticism of human nature in a misanthropic
manner.Swift call man rationalistic animal capable of reason .He wrote to Alexander
Pop,

‘’ I have ever hated all nations, professions,and communities and all my love is
towards individuals….upon this great foundation of misanthropy and the whole the
whole building of my travel is erected’’.

He admits chief end of his labour is to vex the world rather than divert it. Swift so
violently vexed the world that many critics have criticized him bitterly .
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W.M.P.Thekery called his book to be ,

‘’Filthy in words ,filthy in thoughts , furious and obscene’’.

To Scott, is severe , unjust and degrading .

William Hazlitt defends Swift and says ,

What a convincing proof of misanthropy .

He has shown men what the are , and

has taught them ought to be.

His travelogue serves as magnifying glass to show the waywardness of rationale

beings.According to Paul Turner , ‘’Gulliver travels, four voyages form a series in which
the view gradually grow darker ;they represent four stages in Gulliver’s disillusionment .’’

In th voyage to Lilliput , Swift takes us in the land of dwarfs . They are just six
inches in their height.Lilliput is a miniature empire with a pigmy monarch who entitled
himself as delight and terror of the universe. In Lilliput the faults and failings of not only
England but also of all mankind are epitomized.The Lilliputians turn to the cunning and
clever; malicious and malignant . They are ambitious to meet their own pretty ambitions
by any way.

In voyage to Brobdingnag ,Gulliver is repulsed by both the size and coarseness of

their bodies .His hatred reaches the climax in fourth voyage.He becomes misanthropist
in the last voyage.He develops hatred against the mankind in general,against the captain
and the crew and against his wife and children.These are enough evidence to declare
Gulliver a misanthropist.

No doubt,Gulliver starts preferring horses to men.In the fourth voyage there are
two categories of animals……Houyhnhnm s and Yahoos .‘’

Yahoose are unteachable brutes ,cunning ,gluttonous and disposed to great mischief.

He develops disgust and disliking for the Yahoos for their odious physical appearance
and their filthy ways of life. On the other hand, Gulliver’s meeting with Houyhnhnm s
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proves to be nice experience. And his first attractive impression proves the last
impression. Houyhnhnm s secure Gulliver against Yahoos , behave him properly ,escort
him to his abode.Upto this time nothing is objectionable.But his fault begins when he
becomes so enamoured of Houyhnhnm s that he starts hating men and starts equating
Yahoos with men .Gulliver over idealizes the horses due to their intellectual outlook .He
blames emotions , lust, greed and sentiments for every corruption of man .

He says about Yahoos ,

Yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts ,

And the more I came near them ,the more hateful they grew, while I stayed

In that country.’’

As a remedy he starts hating emotions and passions .

The Houyhnhnm s , on the other hand, are endued with the proportion able degree of
reason, and orderly and rational ,acute and judicious.They know neither love nor grieve
nor lust nor ambition.Their cardinal virtues are friendship and benevolence.They are
perfection of nature while the Yahoos are not.

Each of the stories in Gulliver's travels depicts the lowest aspects of human
nature from how we think and look.It is a slap in the the face of pride.The book is satire
on humanity ,hence,the misanthropy comes in.He finds humanity flawed . He detests
the human race . Swift’s very concept of horses being superior to human beings show
his cynicism and misanthropy . He declares

‘’You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society .You err ; I

Love society.Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.’’

Again he says;

Betrayed and wronged in everything , I will flee from this

Bitter world where vice is king, and seek some spot unpeople

And apart where I will be free to have an honest heart .’’

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In short ,the best code of conduct his golden mean which is balance.The balance
between rationality and sensuality is not gifted by birth but it has to be acquired.Swift
cannot be compared with Gulliver despite his misanthropy .Swift can be said a
philanthropist instead of misanthropist . As he himself says ;

‘’ I write for the nobles end ,to inform and instruct mankind ‘’.

He is a hopeful not a hopeless misanthropist.His hatred is the natural reaction to

the vile.

Jonathan Swift’s Prose Style

Swift defined style as proper words in proper places. He occupies a unique place in
English prose literature.There is simplicity and effectiveness in his style . He writes in a
clear , precise and exact style which is absolutely free of any kind of ambiguity .
According to Swift ,

Style is not an ornament ;it is not an exercise , not a caper, nor a complication of
any sort . It is sense of one’s own sense , the knowledge of what one wants to say and
the saying of it in the most befitting words.

There is marvellous erase and precision in Swift’s style .How deep his sense may e
his mode of expression remains simple,flexible and clearly comprehensible .Aitkin rightly
says; ‘’Swift styleis very near perfection, clear ,pointed , precise .’’

His achievement made manifest the infinte possibilities of English prose .Swift
stands out as the greatest stylist among the great.

The complexity of Swift’s style is due to his limitations of various styles.He can
imitate a particular style of the scientist, or the philosopher .But his purpose is to show
the capacity to go through new experience with closed minds. He can create new
creatures and a succession of new countries,he can write with metaphorical complexity
of a poet .According to S.T.Coleridge,

Swift style is in its line ;the manner is a complete expression of the matter
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Swift has artistically used the technique of contrast in the Gulliver’s Travel .In the
first voyage , It is the smallness while in the voyage to Brobdingnag everything is
depicted in a high scale.However , behind this veil of huge structures the man is still
small always considering a utilitarian basis.In the voyage to Laputa , the contrast is not in
the physical form but selfish sincerity to one's profession is shown.Here men are too
busy that even they have no time to give attention to rational as well as emotional
aspects of man.However ,through all these contrasts it is hinted that despite physical
differences the psychology of man is one and the same.

As story teller ,Swift is unsurpassed for his approach to the art of fiction.He
combines the richness of the adult intelligence with the clarity and directness of a child’s
mind .As a result ,his Gulliver travels has two folded appeal .For a child it is simple
narrative of the travels of the Gulliver to some strange lands, and his interesting
experiences there .For the intellectuals ,it is the satire on the fillies of his age as well as
of human beings in general.His style enables him to tell a story clearly with exactly the
right amount of detail and to describe equally and clearly such complicated processes as
the capture of the Blesfusco Fleet , or the schemes of projectors.

He does not write long sentences or speeches or difficult words. As familiarizes with
the people by using their own language .He has used many non nonsensical and
imaginary words .For Example. Lindalino indicates Dublin Nardac means still a fool,
Glumdalclitch means a beautiful nurse . According to Blair ,

‘’His style is one of the plain and simple kind ;

free of all affection ,and all superfluity ;

perspicuous , manly and pure.’’

The age Swift is called , ‘’The angel of prose and reason’’.

People believed in supremacy of reason;and their thoughts were determined by reason.

Hence, Swift describes both imagination and emotions . He appeals to their
minds ,not to their hearts .Moreover ,he offers a criticism of life ; and criticism has no
link of imagination and emotions .There no imaginative flights , no fine frenzies of
passion ; there is just clarity .The reader of Swift needs no previous knowledge .
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In the end , it can be said that Swift deserves praise for ease and safe
communication .His chief quality is that he instructs but never persuades . His work
shows the highest power of genius applied to the literary creations .Even the severest of
the critics have not denied the originality of his work.

Henery Craik describes his style ;

His works occupy a place unique in our own or any other literature.