Jonathan Swift’s powerful satire offers a misanthropist’s perspective of the world, one who has lost faith in and has succumbed to the disillusionment in humankind. Gulliver’s Travels is a glimpse into the real state of the human race, with most salient attacks on the social aspect of it: politics, religion, governmental structure and finally, the essence of what it means to be human. However, at the very end of the novel, it becomes clear that only a person who profoundly cares about the state of humanity could have written a work that touches upon all these issues in such a satirical way. Simply stating what is wrong and what needs to be addressed to improve the state humanity achieves very little, if anything. Thus, Swift developed a satirical way of portraying the general human condition and presented it as a mirror to his contemporaries, whom he urged to see and comprehend the true state of affairs.
Mathew Hodgart and Brian Connery state that “the perennial topic of satire is the human condition itself” (10). Interestingly enough, man is ceaselessly engaged in solving the problems of his existence, which are set by nature, but every problem that he solves, in turn creates new ones, such as the conquest of disease leading to overpopulation and similar (Hodgart and Connery 10). Swift’s misanthropic outlook on the world serves this purpose well, as he endeavors to portray the human condition, to force humans into self-realization they have been hiding from relentlessly. He is satirizing not only social institutions, but general human forms and habits, and the lack of common sense they seem to exhibit. Gulliver, the gullible worm of civilization, plays the role of a witness to all this grossness of the human condition, only to be blinded when he realizes that he is perceived as one of the repugnant Yahoos, while desiring to be like the Houyhnhnms, and wishes for an existence solely reliant on reason, which is also not the solution. This proves that, after all the enlightening things he has seen, he eventually misses the point of Swift’s satiric vision.
With the use of satire, Swift urged the readers to re-evaluate their standpoints when it comes to issues such as the limits of human understanding. Booth states that
This implies that Swift intended for his novel to be read by everyone, but was aware of the fact that only a keen few will be able to comprehend his profound ideas and perceive the reflection of the real world they offer. Swift uses “the technique of reduction,” which basically refers to “the degradation of devaluation of the victim by reducing his stature and dignity” (Hodgart and Connery 115). All of the voyages Gulliver finds himself on serve as a classic example of either governmental and societal bodies being ridiculed, thus portraying the shortcomings of his contemporary society, or simply the satirizing of the ubiquitous human condition, which breeds injustice, wastefulness and an uninformed state of common sense.
The most interesting example of Swift’s satire of humankind’s undue arrogance and blind self-importance is most certainly the land of Lilliput. Their smallness is astonishing to the shipwrecked Gulliver:
In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when bending my eyes downward as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. (Swift 23)
The Lilliputians are the smallest race Gulliver will encounter, and yet, for all their size and insignificance, they prove to be the race most vain and haughty, and this is only the commencing of Swift’s satirical vision. They are self-righteous and smug, not only on an individual level, but also on a collective one, while their social existence is marred by conspiracy and backstabbing. It is only their fortunate streak that Gulliver is gullible enough to follow their whims of grandness and does not exert his more than obvious physical supremacy over the antlike Lilliputians. Their conceited, grandiose opinion of themselves is only strengthened by the naïve Gulliver, who eventually allows them to accuse and condemn him of treason.
Regardless of Gulliver’s presence in their land, Lilliputians continue with their pompous parades of armies marching in order to accentuate their military power and patriotism. They not only show off to him, but more importantly, to themselves, as if in an effort to strengthen the already rooted belief of grandeur and invincibility. Their grand parade demanded of Gulliver to “stand like a Colossus, with [his] legs as far asunder as [he] conveniently could” (Swift 42). This whole parade, passing through Gulliver’s spread legs, evokes an image that is more silly and absurd, rather than an impressive and majestic one, which they were endeavoring to portray. It only proves the absurdity of their erroneous opinion of themselves, of their flamboyant arrogance which has no base in reality and Gulliver’s utter inability to see through it.
Contrary to the experience of being in possession of physical supremacy in Lilliput, in Brobdingnag, he is the one being terrorized by a huge world. This is yet another instance of satirizing the amount of physical might being exuded over the weaker part of the population: in Lilliput, Gulliver’s is tied down by a million little Lilliputians, in Brobdingnag, he is captured by a farmer, while the Houyhnhnms keep the animal-like Yahoos chained and subdued. Public social life is ruled by those who, physically, have the upper hand, and they are ruling according to their own personal desires and aspirations, instead of following morals and fairness. Thus, moral righteousness is nowhere to be seen in any of the countries Gulliver visits.
The gigantic Brobdingnagians serve as a symbol of the sordid and neglected notions of human subsistence, which, though neglected, sometimes mean the difference between life and death, especially for the puny Gulliver. The Enlightenment Era endeavored to perceive man as a spiritual being, accentuating the workings of his mind at the cost of his body. In their writings, philosophers of that time were able to turn a blind eye to the dirtiness and grossness of human existence, but Gulliver is not allowed this privilege, and is forced to bear witness to the dirty pores of a servant girl or to the urination of women who treat him as a (sexual) plaything: “while I was placed on their toilet, directly before their naked bodies, which I am sure to me was very far from being a tempting sight, or from giving me any other emotion than those of horror and disgust” (Swift 110). Consequently, this physical side of humans is emphasized, with their most private and personal traits exposed and put under close scrutiny.
Interestingly enough, Swift puts Gulliver into a position where he offers the best and most adorned version of his homeland and its practices to the king of Brobdingnag, who, after all being said and done, concludes that mankind is nothing but a nuisance in the world and prefigures Gulliver’s own hate of his fellow men, at the end of his travels. The king’s harsh words: “I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth,” seem to be painfully true and observant of all the faults Gulliver seems to be oblivious to (Swift 123).
The island of Laputa offers yet another instance of Swift’s satiric criticism. Here, he utilizes the idea of theoretical knowledge that has very little, if any, practical use in the real world. The eighteenth century Enlightenment was a period of new ideas, theories and intellectual experimentation, while Swift was aligning himself with old, traditional knowledge the worth of which has already been proven. Thus, Swift is criticizing intellectuals, scholars, philosophers and scientists, who tend to neglect the practical side of ideas they come up with. Herbert John Davies states that Swift was actually satirizing “the strange experiments of the scientists of the Royal Society” (149). The experiments of the Grand Academy of Lagado, such as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, are hilariously elaborated on, and Gulliver feels genuine awe and reverence for them. In this sense, their knowledge, time and effort put into these experiments, which are making the Laputans anxious and highly displeasing, instead of making their lives easier, have very little social use, and thus, are deemed as not bettering the population, but rather impoverishing it.
Finally, Gulliver’s last stop before his return home is the land of Houyhnhnms, which is characterized by reason and logic, denunciation of leisure activities which serve no purpose and mild nature, without any excitement whatsoever. In Gulliver’s eyes, they are the ideal community and by the end of the book, he identifies himself completely with these horses, whose treatment of the animal-like Yahoos may appear cruel, but necessary in the prolonging of their almost ideal society. Their lack of names and almost interchangeable identities add to the harmony and happiness of their existence, referring to the idea of a unified society where all the members are equal to the point of being physically and psychologically same. Their rational existence has utterly neglected the emotional side, which is evident in their appraisal of family planning. Still, Gulliver appears to be mesmerized by their nature, the lack of vigor in their lives and the utter serenity of existence they exude.
Their calm mannerisms and civilized behavior are reminiscent of colonial imperialism of European nations who claimed to be civilizing and educating, through the use of coercion and violence, the indigenous people, who were leading happy and fulfilling lives, at peace with their basic nature and mild characters. No wonder that Gulliver aligns himself with the Houyhnhnms, due to the fact that he is an England native, a country that colonized and oppressed numerous countries in the past centuries. His naïve patriotism is misplaced, yet Gulliver to the very end, continues to be a “gullible worm.”
For Swift, the main objective of parody and satire is the overall human condition, and thus, this novel may seem like a tragedy of the state of human existence. But, it was not Swift’s intention to expose all human flaws and just leave them hanging in the air, rather, he endeavored to awaken humankind from moral lethargy it has slipped into and to enable an ethical reassessment that would make humans more humble, more fair and less pretentious.
Works Cited:
Booth, Wayne C. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Print.
Davis, Herbert John. Jonathan Swift: Essays on his Satire and Other Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964. Print.
Hodgart, Matthew, and Brian Connery. Satire: Origins and Principles. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2009. Print.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. Revised. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. Print.
