Gulliver's Travels Essay

Submitted By mromo31310
Words: 432
Pages: 2

Marissa Romo
Mr. John Pool
AP Literature
December 11, 2012
Gulliver’s Travels? Looking back at Jonathan Swift’s background, he had much hatred towards those who deceived him but also towards society in general. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, he attacked society in his time towards science, laws, and religion using irony. Gulliver made three trips, including Lilliput, a place where the people, called the Lilliputians, are tiny in size but big in their minds, Brobdingnag, where the people are all giants and unselfish, and finally the country of the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms, where the horses are wise and the humans are stupid and cruel. In the first travel, Swift makes fun of the people that upset him by introducing the six inch Lilliputians. They are ruled by an Emperor that chooses his court with their rope dancing other than their actual abilities. Their size makes their political arguments and wars with their local neighbors seem ridiculous. However one begins to realize that Swift is not only making fun of a small amount of people, but also our entire society. In the second travel, the reader can see that the normal, unselfish individuals are the ones that turn into the greedy, cocky, and vicious people everyone talks down on. Swift makes it clear that no existing human is flawless and that at one point they become the opposite of what society believes is perfect. Humans turn into hypocrites and full of violence that damage whatever is necessary to get what they want. Many argue whether the corrupted should be diminished or kept. However, Swift believes that even if humans were