Gulliver's Travels

by Jonathan Swift

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Summary

In Jonathan Swift's bitter, witty & brilliant satire of the state of England in the early 18th century, his hero, Lemuel Gulliver (epitome of the average man), becomes, as he travels, increasingly frustrated by the corruption & irrationality of the human species. His sea voyage takes him to Lilliput, where he is first exploited by its tiny citizens & then condemned as a traitor. Then he lands in Brobdingnag, to whom he is the Lilliputian. He's repulsed by the size, grossness & stupidity of the giants who capture him. His third voyage is to Laputa, where Swift wickedly satirizes intellectuals as impractical twits. It's only in the land of the Houyhnhnms that Gulliver finds peace, where gentle, intelligent & rational horses rule the land & the humans--known as Yahoos--are brutishly stupid. When Gulliver is cast out, he's consumed with grief, & his return to England--the land of true Yahoos--brings him no joy. When it first appeared (1726), GULLIVER'S TRAVELS shocked the reading public with its bitter outlook, general irreverence & graphic descriptions of bodily functions. It remains, however, a treasure of English literature. Even for readers who no longer understand the political context that is the main point of the merciless satire, the book is a work of wild imagination, enormous humor & thrilling adventure.

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