Jonathan Swift's Use of Satire in Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift was a great fan of using sarcasm, exaggerations and

caricatures. All of these words can be summarised into one satire.

Swift uses satire in most of his work and Gulliver's Travels is no

exception.

In Gulliver's Travels Swift satirises how in the 18th century Europe

was oblivious to all else going on and thought that everything that

they did was correct. He does this in various stages/lands throughout

the book. He also gains knowledge and culture throughout his travels

to encourage us to step back and think about the world that we live

in, the leaders that are chosen, how we are still animals deep down,

and our selfishness. In the book Gulliver celebrates the glory of

Europe but he gradually realises that all that he thinks is good and

takes for granted as reality is the complete opposite.

The first island that Gulliver visits is Lilliput. The inhabitants of

this island are the Lilliputians; they are very small people and Swift

describes them as a very diminutive race. The size of the inhabitants

and the events that happen on the island make the people seem very

insignificant, but after a while you realise that Swift is actually

mocking Europe. Swift mocks the way that leaders are acquired by them

having to jump over a stick to become of any importance. On this

island there is a very ridiculous war about the way that an egg should

be cracked open. Gulliver left this island believing that the

inhabitants were insignificant to him and continued thinking about the

greatness of Europe.

The second island that Gulliver visited was Brobdingnag. The people

that lived here are much bigger than Gulliver. This symbolises that

they are also better, and this is true. Gulliver arrives at this

islan...

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The main affect the Swift wanted the book to have on the reader was

for him/her to step back, analyse the world that we live in and

hopefully attempt to make it closer to the Utopia's he wrote about in

the book.

I think that Swift's view on human nature is very pessimistic and that

he was a person that had a very negative view about life and the way

the world was.

I think the things that are similar between our time and Swifts time

is that wars and disputes still go on, there is still inequality,

there are still people who do bad things and the law system has not

changed. The things that I think have changed in time are the politics

system, the way that we are aware of the less fortunate and some

people choose to help.

I think that whatever time we are in and whatever place someone

somewhere will have a fault with it and attempt to make it better.