Gulliver's Travels (Themes)

Themes

Human Condition

Gulliver's Travels is political satire in the form of an adventure novel. Swift creates several fantasy worlds to which his character, Lemuel Gulliver, travels, and where he learns that English institutions, such as the government and social structure, are not necessarily ideal.

Swift subscribed to the pre-Enlightenment, Protestant idea that man is by nature sinful, having fallen from perfection in the Garden of Eden. While man is a rational animal, his rationality is not always used for good. Therefore, one should not hold up rationality as the greatest human quality, as many Enlightenment thinkers did. It is the human condition, Swift felt, to sin: to be deceitful, cruel, selfish, materialistic, vain, foolish, and otherwise flawed. Rationality and institutions such as governments, churches, and social structures (schools, for example) exist to rein in man's tendency to sin, to keep him in line.

These beliefs of Swift's are evident throughout Gulliver's Travels. Naive Gulliver encounters his physical and moral inferiors, the Lilliputians, and sees that they have well-thought-out but illogical and even unethical ideas about justice, schooling children, and choosing political leaders. On the contrary, Gulliver's physical and moral superiors, the Brobdingnagians, do not suffer war or strife because their political and social structures are far superior to England's. Part III is a scathing indictment of how Enlightenment thinkers value rationality, science, discoveries, and new ideas over traditional, practical ways of doing things. Note, for example, that only Count Munodi's arm thrives because he does not embrace the Projectors' newfangled ways. Practicality and tradition, Swift believed, have great value. Finally, in Part IV, Swift contrasts the best that man was (in the Garden of Eden before the Fall), represented by the Houyhnhnm, with the debased state to which he can fall, represented by the Yahoo. While Swift suggests that we can never return to that state of perfection, because it is the human condition to sin, we can at least rise above our Yahoo-ness.

Politics

Swift was not only a clergyman but a political writer and activist, writing for the Tory paper at one point in his career and writing political pamphlets. He was deeply involved in the battles between the Whigs and Tories and active in trying to help England's oppression of Ireland. He and some of his friends were also the victims of petty politics. No wonder Swift chose to ridicule the worst aspects of politics in Gulliver's Travels.

Most of Swift's scathing political satire can be found in Part I, which mirrors the events in England in Swift's day. The petty Lilliputian emperor represents the worst kind of governor, pompous and too easily influenced by his counselors' selfish ambitions. He is also a stand-in for King George I, from his identification with the Whig party (the fictional Low Heels) to his betrayal of his friend and helper, Gulliver (who represents Swift and his Tory friends Oxford and Bolingbroke), to his ridiculous means of choosing his advisors and rewarding them with meaningless ribbons (which represent titles and other useless favors bestowed by George I on his cronies). The king and his cabinet demand a cruel and, Gulliver thinks, unjust punishment of the rebel Blefuscudians, just as George I and the Whigs wanted to punish France more severely than the Tories did when negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht that ended England's war against France and Spain.

Then, too, Swift explores the duties and purpose of government in Parts I, II, and IV. By having Gulliver discuss his system of government and compare it to the ones he discovers, Swift raises questions about government's role in public education, provisions for the poor, and distribution of wealth. Part of what makes Gulliver's Travels so provocative and timely even today is that Swift doesn't provide simplistic answers to these questions. His observations about partisan politics, unchecked corruption, and dubious qualifications of political leaders unfortunately ring true even in contemporary America.

Culture Clash

When people of two different cultures come in contact with each other, they often experience "culture clash": they are surprised and a unsettled when they are confronted with the other's customs. Gulliver is the odd man out whenever he travels to other countries, and is curious about the customs of the people he meets. He is quite surprised at times by the differences between his way of life and theirs. He discusses English institutions and customs at length with both the Brobdingnagians and the Houyhnhnm. He is confident, even arrogant, in his belief that once these foreigners hear of British ways they will be impressed by his people. To his surprise, disappointment, and frustration, they ask obvious questions about flaws and shortcomings of British institutions and customs. The Brobdingnagian king is horrified at the concept of gunpowder, and he tells Gulliver that his race must be "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." The Houyhnhnm simply can't understand the concept of lying, and are amazed and horrified to hear that in England, horses are enslaved by men, because in their country the humanoid Yahoos are their slaves. The more Gulliver tries to explain England's ways, the more shocked and repulsed the Houyhnhnm and Brobdingnagians are, and the more the reader sees how blind Gulliver is to the shortcomings of his own kind. The contrast between Gulliver's way of life and the foreigners', even that of the Lilliputians and Laputans, is intended to nudge readers into asking hard questions of their own culture.

Custom and Tradition

Swift is one of the most acclaimed satirists of the English language because of his clever use of language and symbolism to make his points in a humorous way. Satire, or holding up to ridicule human vices and folly, often involves irony, or words that mean more than the characters realize, or something entirely different altogether. The gullible Gulliver's straightforward reporting of absurdities creates this irony. For example, he tells us matter-of-factly that the Lilliputians bury their dead head first because they believe that when the end of the world comes the flat earth will flip upside down, leaving them right side up for the afterlife. He also notes that many Lilliputians no longer actually believe this is necessary, but follow tradition anyway. This passage is satirical as well, because it is representative of all sorts of traditions, religious and otherwise, that human beings create and cling to long after they've stopped believing in them.

Science and Technology

Swift also parodies the scientists of his day in order to make his point that science for its own sake is not a lofty ideal. Science, and the ability to reason, ought to be used for practical ends, he felt, to address and solve the many real-life problems. He drew upon actual scientific experiments in Part III, when the scientists of Balnibarbi defy the law of nature with such ludicrous experiments as extracting sunshine from cucumbers. The absurdity of their impracticality — for example, they can't even sew clothes for themselves that fit because their way of measuring is so screwball — makes them objects of ridicule.

Topics for Further Study

• Discuss how Gulliver's travels change him and the way he perceives his fellow man.
• Research actual historical explorers of the 1600s and early 1700s. Compare and contrast their voyages with Gulliver's journeys, and quote from actual historical accounts if you can find them.
• Based on having read Gulliver's Travels, would you say Jonathan Swift was a misanthrope (a person who hated mankind)? Support your argument with quotes and examples from the text.
• Investigate philosophical thought of the 1600s and early 1700s regarding the nature of man. Compare the analyses of philosophers such as René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Leibniz, and John Locke with Gulliver's opinions as expressed in the novel.
• Explain why Swift gave Gulliver the habit of describing people, places, items, and events in specific, sometimes almost scientific, detail.