Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735) is a work of fiction by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. Swift's masterpiece, it is his most celebrated work and one of the indisputable classics of the English language.

Plot and Structure

The book presents itself as a simple traveller's narrative with the disingenuous title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, its authorship assigned only to "Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, then a captain of several ships". Different editions contain different versions of the prefatory material which are basically the same as forewords in modern books. The 1735 edition (see the Composition and History section below) contains an additional piece purporting to be a letter from Gulliver to his cousin Sympson, complaining of the emendations made to the first edition.

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The book proper is divided into four parts, which are as follows.

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Part I : A Voyage To Lilliput

The book begins with a short preamble in which Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages. We learn he is middle-aged and middle-class with a talent for medicine and languages and that he enjoys travelling. This turns out to be fortunate.

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On his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and awakes to find himself a prisoner of a race of six-inch high people, inhabitants of the neighboring and rival countires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. After giving assurances of his good behaviour he is given a residence and becomes a favourite of the court. There follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput which is intended to satirise the court of then King George I. After he assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours the Blefuscudans (by stealing their fleet) but refuses to reduce the country to a province of Lilliput, he is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. Fortunately, a Gulliver-sized boat washes up on the far shore of the country and he makes his escape.

Related Topics:
Lilliput and Blefuscu - George I

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Part II : A Voyage to Brobdingnag

While exploring a new country, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet tall (the scale of Lilliput is approximately 12:1, of Brobdingnag 1:12) who treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for money. He is then bought by the King of Brobdingnag and kept as a favourite at court. In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey he discusses the state of Europe with the King, who is not impressed. On a trip to the seaside, his "travelling box" is seized by a giant eagle and dropped into the sea where he is picked up by sailors and returned to England.

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Part III : A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubdubdribb, Luggnagg and Japan

Gulliver's ship is attacked by pirates and he is abandoned on a desolate rocky island. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa and taken thence to Balnibarbi to await a Dutch trader that can take him on to Japan and thence to England. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results. He also encounters the Struldbruggs, unfortunates who are both immortal and very, very old. He also travels to a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients v moderns" theme in the book. The trip is otherwise reasonably free of incident and Gulliver returns home, determined to stay a homebody for the rest of his days.

Related Topics:
Flying island - Laputa - Struldbrug

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Part IV : A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms

After foolishly disregarding his intentions at the end of the third part, Gulliver returns to sea where his crew mutiny to turn pirate. He is abandoned ashore and comes upon first a race of (apparently) hideous deformed creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that the horses (in their language Houyhnhnm or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos") are human beings at their most base. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, treated almost as a favored pet, and both admires and emulates the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting human beings as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, as a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilisation and he is expelled. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship that returns him to his home in England. He is, however, unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and lives instead in his stables. The book finishes with a peroration against Pride that is ironically boastful and seems to be intended to show that Gulliver's reason may have turned. However, no definite answer is forthcoming from the text and critics have argued this point for years.

Related Topics:
Mutiny - Houyhnhnm - Yahoo

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