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Jonathan SwiftGulliver's Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1726A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Lemuel Gulliver
Gulliver is the first-person narrator of the novel, with the book presented as his truthful memoirs. As a narrator, Gulliver’s reliability is difficult to definitively determine. He is often insistent on the consistency of his moral virtue; he maintains that he is honest, noble, and respectful of tradition. He is also modest, though at times the way he embellishes his virtue sometimes contradicts this assertion. Importantly, Gulliver is also of a middle-class background. He is not a member of any form of nobility nor part of any elite circle. Despite his professed honesty, however, the tales that he recounts are full of incredible adventures that create humorous contrasts with his self-presentation as an honest, humble, and pragmatic man.
At the start of his travels, Gulliver is idealistic, almost to a fault. He recognizes some of the shortcomings of humankind, while still believing in their inherent worth and virtue. Gradually, however, Gulliver starts to view humanity in a new and far more critical light. Dazzled by the virtue of the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver launches a tirade against all of human civilization in the final book. All of his initial virtue and hopeful optimism is entirely destroyed and replaced with a cynicism that he never subsequently breaks away from. Even his return to England only entrenches his new disdain for humanity even further. After experiencing life in a truly virtuous land, Gulliver can no longer look at his fellow human beings with anything other than contempt. His ultimate preference for the company of horses and his reclusion from English society completes his personal and ideological transformation.
The Houyhnhnms
The Houyhnhnms are horses who have built a civilization and live a life that Gulliver wishes humanity would live. Gulliver’s experiences with the Houyhnhnms cause him to reflect upon human nature in ways that lead him to a caustic rebuke of humanity in general.
The Houyhnhnms have a very simple language, one that is void of abstractions and has no words for behaviors that stem from vice—they have no word for lying other than a phrase. They are also very socially aware, creating policies that allow people to have the basic necessities of life without having to resort to nefarious means. They are generally very healthy, with disease a rarity. When an aging Houyhnhnm nears death, it usually happens peacefully and without much fanfare or drama. Both male and female Houyhnhnms are educated and are faithful in their marriages, which are arranged. They have governing assemblies that meet every four years and usually the topic of conversation revolves around ideas to improve the quality of life for all citizens.
The Houyhnhnms are the dominant species in their homeland and have tamed a species called Yahoos, who are uncivilized human beings. Since the Yahoos are such vicious creatures, the only real debate the Houyhnhnms have is whether they should exterminate the Yahoos or let them live. The Houyhnhnms serve as an ironic inversion of the usual natural order by being the dominant species in place of humans, while also representing the reason and virtue humanity often aspires to while perpetually falling short.
The Brobdingnagians
The Brobdingnagians are the giant people Gulliver mistakes for monsters the first time he sees them. Amongst the Brobdingnagians there is far more variation in terms of character types than there is for the Houyhnhnms, who generally are one-dimensionally noble. The first Brobdingnagians that Gulliver meets are farmers, and though he is treated fairly, the farmer who initially provides Gulliver with safety and food realizes that money can be made by showcasing Gulliver throughout the kingdom. The farmer’s intentions reveal an enterprising sensibility, but he soon allows his greed to take over. His daughter, meanwhile, is the primary caretaker for Gulliver throughout his entire stay in the kingdom. Even after Gulliver is sold to the queen, Glumdalclitch is likewise brought into the imperial palace to be Gulliver’s nurse.
The Brobdingnagians’ primary function in the book is to highlight the faults of the human body. Because of the proportionality of their bodies, Gulliver is able to see every imperfection; he is able to see dirt that an individual might not even know is there, suggesting the impossibility of being fully clean and free of filth. The same idea applies to smell. Gulliver is able to smell the Brobdingnagians mainly because of their size. Gulliver is especially disgusted by the naked female Brobdingnagians he sees, whom he claims are monstrous. While the Brobdingnagians do not receive the same kind of contempt as do the Lilliputians or the Yahoos, their greed and the repugnance their bodies inspire in Gulliver create opportunities for satirical commentary on human failings.
The Lilliputians
Of all the new societies Gulliver encounters in his travels, only the Lilliputians use actual physical force against him. This begins right away, as Gulliver discovers when he wakes up on a shoreline after having nearly died. He finds himself tied up and is attacked by arrows when he begins to move around. It is only in Lilliput where Gulliver feels any kind of threat from intentional physical violence. When he is faced with the so-called “articles of impeachment” and his punishment is decided upon, the Lilliputians inform him that he will have his eyes removed. There is therefore a sadistic streak to these diminutive people. Additionally, unlike the Laputans, Lilliput has a rivalry with Blefuscu that enables military build-up and threats of war.
The Lilliputians also have superficial and trivial rituals upon which most disagreements and resentments rest. Their primary political division in the country centers on who wears high-heeled shoes and who wears shoes with low heels. Labels are attached to either group and when one so-called party is in power, the other must submit or face charges of treason and other such crimes. The Lilliputians are lustful after power; they deceive and conspire; they are quick-tempered and full of pride—all of these characteristics mirror the foibles of human societies.
The Laputans
The Laputans are cult-like, worshipping at the altar of math, astronomy, and music. They are intelligent in these subjects but are completely clueless in all other sciences and arts, including politics and poetry. They are a myopic people, incapable of retaining any perspective on the wider world that exists outside their worldview. They cut their bread according to geometric patterns; they embed astronomical symbols into their clothes, which are poorly constructed and do not fit. They conduct experiments that seem entirely absurd at their Lagado Academy, such as writing mathematical equations of wafers and studying ways in which a house can be built from the roof down.
The absurdity of the Lagado Academy illustrates the extent to which intellectualism, when unrestrained and without clear purpose, can lead to an absence of common sense. Too much inquiry can also lead to unintended consequences as well. For example, many of the Laputans fear a coming apocalypse that will be brought about by a comet. Their quality of life is adversely impacted as they stress over something over which they have no control. Swift’s portrayal of the Laputans does not suggest that intellectual inquiry is naturally bad; instead, what he implies is that without a proper balance between scientific inquiry and common sense, people can get entirely carried away and live their lives almost as ghosts of themselves.
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