Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift

**Spoiler Warning!  I’m not holding back on plot details – you’ve had 300 years to read this sucker.  And at least one episode of Wishbone.  You’ve been warned.**

I’m always amazed to read ‘classical’ literature and to learn that it’s not what I was expecting, even though I had heard about the story a million times.  That was the case with my last read, Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift.  I think it’s fair to say that we have all, at one time or another, heard of Gulliver and his adventures.  However, how much do you really know about them?

A brief overview of the plot: Lemuel Gulliver is a ship’s surgeon who sets out to sea only to be shipwrecked.  As the sole survivor, he wakes up on an island inhabited be people that stand no higher than six inches or so.  Gulliver spends several months as a giant amongst the population.  Gulliver’s next stop is to a land where he stands no more than six inches tall to the other inhabitants.  Next, he visits a place where the capital city is a floating island and where all the male inhabitants are philosophers of one stripe or another (it’s a population that literally lives with its head in the clouds, whether they live on the floating island or on the ground).  The last of Gulliver’s destinations is an island where horses are the top species and human serve them. 

Now, for all these adventures, I was only really aware of the first!  I was a little surprised when Gulliver was leaving Lilliput in the first quarter of the book!  Regardless, I got over the confusion, and enjoyed the rest of Gulliver’s travels.  Swift, being a master satirist (just check out A Modest Proposal for one of the best written pieces of satire in Western literature), used his protagonist’s travels to comment on his own world and the realities he observed therein.

The dichotomy between Lilliput and Brobdingnag (where Gulliver is a giant vs. where he lives amongst giants) is obvious.  To go from one extreme to another is shocking for Gulliver and the reader.  In the first instance, Gulliver helps to protect the Liliputians and does them many great favours because of his size; however, in Brobdingnag he’s seen as only good for entertaining the king and his court.  It’s a subtle comment on the people of his own time, if you ask me (more on that below).

In Gulliver’s next stop, there is also a dichotomy, but one that is less obvious.  In this case, the comparison is between England and Laputa.  In the city-states of Laputa, and on the floating island, the men are all engaged in deep thought, so much so that they employ servants to bash them about the head and face to get their attention when someone is speaking to them.  They are ruminating on a great number of things – how to improve agriculture, how to cure illnesses, or how to strengthen the government.  For all these thoughts, however, the practice fails.  The comparison between Gulliver’s own land and Laputa is evident; the philosophers of Laputa spend so much time in thought, that they pay almost no attention to anything else, be it the execution of their plans, or their wives.  It’s a damning comment on the state of affairs in England, as perceived by Swift.

Gulliver’s final stop, in Houyhnhnms, is perhaps the most biting of all his satirical comments.  In this land, the horses are the top species, and they are served by human-like creatures, the Yahoos.  Yahoos are best described to the modern reader as feral humans; they have all the characteristics of humans, but there is an animal quality to them.  Compared against the noble horse, the Yahoos seem to be filthy and mean creatures, and not deserving of sympathy.  Gulliver, living amongst the horses because he was able to learn their language, quickly disengages from these human-like creatures, going so far as to wear their skins as hides, much like he would any other leather.

The running commonality through all these voyages is Swift’s observations on the flaws of his own people in early 18^th century England.  Whether he’s drawing a stark comparison between these new lands and his own, or aligning them to one another, it’s clear that Swift finds very little to commend his own society.  And, as with most satirists, he does it with a deft hand – you have to know what you’re looking for to see it.

This thought raised an interesting question for me.  When this book was first published in 1726, the reading audience was far less savvy that we are today.  This was an era when the common people were able to afford to purchase luxury items (such as fictional literature), thanks to the serialization of stories and the growth of the middle class; the Empire was starting to flourish and stories were getting back to the mother-country about the explorations that were being undertaken for king and country; and the concept of the ‘other’ was taking hold in the minds of the populace – that is, the understanding of something like them, but wholly different, appearing to alter their world view.  All this led me to ask – how many people thought Swift’s work was the true account of a world traveler?  In an age before TV and the internet, the only way to explore the world was through travel literature.  With one satirical piece among so many sincere publications, I’m willing to bet Swift fooled more than a few.  And I’m sure he’s still smiling about that.

So, final verdict?  Read it.  It’s a piece of the Western literary tradition, and a substantial piece of the zeitgeist.  You might, like me, have been wholly ignorant of the true scope of the story, so I highly recommend you get yourself up to speed.  There are passages which wax and wane on the morality of the era, and some of the satire is probably lost if you aren’t up on the 18^th century British social-political scene, so I think it’s fair to say that this is one book where an abridged version might be the best bet for the majority of readers.  However, I do strongly urge you all to check it out.