Final Impressions on Gulliver's Travels

Although many people tend to see the third part of Gulliver’s Travels as the part of the book that was least related to the rest of the book, the fourth part stood out the most to me as being separate from the rest of the book. This is primarily because there is a shift in Gulliver’s role in the critique of European society. In the first three parts, Gulliver is a staunch defender of his native land and it is only through Swift, not Gulliver, who is satirizing England and its flaws. In the third part, however, Gulliver himself portrays English society as flawed.

When Gulliver is among the Lilliputians in part one, the satire is primarily achieved through looking at the humorous way that Lilliput is described. Lilliput is essentially an over-exaggerated depiction of certain parts of English society: for example, the ridiculousness of the debate over which side of the egg to crack and the great violence and many deaths that this debate has caused is Swift’s way of showing that the doctrinal religious arguments of Europe are just as pointless. Swift uses his description of Lilliputian society rather than his character Gulliver to critique English society.

In Brobdingnag, another technique is used. The most noticeable critique of English society was when Gulliver enthusiastically told the king about the greatness of England, and the king responded with criticisms of what Gulliver had told him. Again, this is an example of Swift using Gulliver’s surroundings rather than the thoughts and opinions of Gulliver himself to analyze English/European society.

In Laputa and the other places Gulliver visits in part three, Swift uses a technique similar to the one he used in Lilliput to make fun of European society. By making a race of people in which some of the Enlightenment ideals of reason, math, and learning are exaggerated to a ridiculous degree, Swift pokes fun at the Enlightenment itself. However, this is also where we start to see the seeds of Gulliver’s mistrust of English society when he learns unfavorable things about some of the great people and events of European history.

It is not until Gulliver arrives in the country of the Houyhnhnms that Gulliver himself directly criticizes England in his own thoughts and words. When his Houyhnhnm master asks him to describe his native society, Gulliver gives an obviously critical description of various aspects of England, and later, when he is forced to leave the country of the Houyhnhnms, he intensely loathes all of humankind and their vices.

I thought it was interesting that Swift waited until the fourth part of the book to make Gulliver himself the vehicle for satirizing European culture. It seemed to me that by making the book a learning experience for Gulliver, it was as if Swift was making the book a learning experience for the reader as well. If even Gulliver, who has a great love for his country and enthusiastically defends it at first, can learn to hate England, then it becomes a lot easier for the reader of Gulliver’s adventures to learn to hate it as well.