Bolton 1

I. Gulliver’s Travels: Gulliver

a. Reasonable
b. Analytical by nature
c. How he views the world
d. Reaction to the odd circumstances
II. Gulliver’s Travels: Lilliput
a. Size: what it means
b. Cunning
c. Manipulative
d. Warmongering
e. Bureaucratic
f. Ultimately betrayed by them
g. Wars for stupid reasons
III. Gulliver’s Travels: Brobdingnag
a. Size: what it means
b. Ugliness
c. Miserliness
d. King
e. Greeks
f. Quotes
IV. Modest Proposal
a. Proposer’s logic
b. British-Irish Parallels
c. Details
d. Quotes
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Tom Bolton

Mr. Meyers

American Literature

12/10/07

Jonathan Swift: A Man of Humor

Jonathan Swift’s satirical masterworks paint the picture of someone who is as much

confounded by human nature as he is accepting of it. Throughout his works he delivers scathing

criticism of human nature, reasoning, intricacies and countries, all the while using humor, thinly

veiled metaphors, and gall rarely seen in those days. It has been said that while brave men tell the

truth and a woman holds her tongue (knowing silence will speak for her) that the wise man’s

tools are analogies and puzzles. That is perhaps the most apt way to describe Swift’s way of

expressing his opinions. It can even be said that his modus operandi is the crux of his

philosophies.

In Gulliver’s Travels, Swift uses the main character Gulliver as a representation of what

he thinks a reasonable or average person would do and think, given the present circumstances.

Swift describes Gulliver as being the third of five sons, an average position to begin with, who

went to Cambridge for university studies, and became a surgeon. This is most likely done to give

Gulliver a background in being analytical to justify his approach to oddities. This also gives

Swift plenty of leeway with which to create his out-of-proportion monstrosities.

Gulliver often approaches the scenarios presented in Gulliver’s Travels with varying

fascination, delight and occasional disinterest. He could almost be said to represent Swift’s lack

of interest in the straightforward manner of other writers, even satirical ones that wrote during

his time. This is done to show how Swift views humans as being interesting at first but boring
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after an extended period of study. Though Swift’s creations are not humans as we may see them,

they are humanoid in shape, and their personality traits also resemble humans, albeit they are

usually the uglier traits of humanity.

In Lilliputia Swift’s motives and metaphors begin to make themselves clear. Swift

illustrates the Lilliputians as being diminutive not only in stature but also in logic and reasoning.

As an example, upon finding Gulliver, a giant from their perspective, collapsed and unconscious

on their beach, they decide to tie him up. This act, although humorously inept and utterly

pointless, is a malicious one nonetheless. They also punish any evidence of fraud with death,

despite being blatant bureaucrats and deceivers. They even start wars with their neighboring

country of Blefuscu for stupid and moronic reasons, such as which end of an egg should be

broken for the purpose of removing the inside.

The Lilliputians are also cunning and manipulative. They keep Gulliver ‘clasped in irons’

until the governing body has enough time to assess him. While it appears that they are assessing

his risk to their kingdom, it becomes apparent later that they are assessing his value as a tool for

their kingdom of bureaucracy. They give him a house and show him favor, while the base

citizenry show their true sentiments and harass him every now and again. The court also shows

its true colors when it calls upon him to attack the neighboring country of Blefuscu.

Upon returning from his raid on Blefuscu he is honored and given awards. At first it

appears as though the Lilliputians are not so mischievous. Not long after Gulliver returns from

his endeavor, one of the members of the Lilliputian court takes a keen distaste for Gulliver and

manipulates events to have him disposed of. Although Gulliver escapes the Lilliputians, with

some help from the king, their bureaucratic malarkey is the reason Swift depicts them so
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negatively. Swift wants to satirize the bureaucrats of his time who focused on politics, war and

nuances, rather than efficiency, reason and truth.

There are also several parallels between Lilliputia and England. One example is the war

between Lilliputia and Blefuscu, a war started because the countries in question could not agree

about which end of any given egg should be broken. This is similar, in some ways, too ridiculous

wars started by England in its past. The Lilliputians also long to defeat their hated enemy,

Blefuscu, not unlike the British animosity towards France. Of course, Swift portrays them in the

most abstract way possible.

Brobdingnag is the next of the metaphorical places in Gulliver’s Travels. The people

there, although giant in stature, do not have reason in proportion to their body size. Even the

great king of Brobdingnag, despite being wise, quickly dismisses Europeans as “the most

pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the face of the

Earth.” (Swift, Jonathan. Pg114) Whether or not this is Swift’s own opinion is never fully

explained.

In Brobdingnag, Swift satirizes the relevancy of appearances and the common European

view of the ancient Greeks. While the European sculptors and artists simply portrayed the

Greeks as being god-like, Swift makes the Brobdingnagians roughly the size one might imagine

a god to be. Swift satirizes the embellishment of Greek culture that evinces itself in European art

such as when Gulliver states that the people are ugly on closer examination, and that a foul odor

emanates from them. This is a mockery both of how the Greeks had a violent behavior and war-

based economy, and a literal one of how they probably smelled given the hygiene at the time and

a stab at any preoccupation with beauty. Swift, as ever, employs innovative ways to use lowbrow

humor.
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In another of his works, “A Modest Proposal,” Swift continues his satire on the quirks of

human nature. In the first paragraph Swift satirizes the paranoid British view of Spain when he

wrote, “Children who, as they grow up, either turn thieves or leave to fight for Spain.” (Swift,

Jonathan. Par. 1) This humorous quip is another show of Swift’s clairvoyance in that his

statement is not dissimilar to those used during the Cold War and the War in Iraq, such as: ‘if

you do that, then the terrorists win.’ Although the connection is seemingly irrelevant, it is the

fact that these fears are perpetuated throughout time no matter the circumstance, is why it is

reasonable to suggest that these connection have significance. This quirk of human nature is one

of Swift’s lesser used targets, but a deserving one nonetheless.

More than anything, “A Modest Proposal” is a humorous look at people Swift considers

to be, because of his Irish heritage, immoral, bloodthirsty, and inhumane: the British. Swift first

evinces this view when the ‘proposer’ writes that children are a grievance, and that an abortion is

worse than devouring children because it isn’t productive. It is by going into repulsively

descriptive detail that Swift drives home his views on British activities and opinions; they’re

barbaric, bloodthirsty, and sociopathic. The severity of Swift’s indictments is not lessened at all

by his satirical way of presenting it.

Swift also attack the class systems in Britain. The proposer states, “Landlords, who, as

they have already devoured most of the parents seem to have the best title to the children.”(Swift,

Jonathan. Par. 12) This is Swift’s peculiar way of criticizing and mocking the nobility of Europe

for having such codes of conduct as chivalry while simultaneously financially ‘strangling’ the

poor. Although it is a passing comment in the paragraph, it is one of the few specific statements

of Swift’s opinions, a rare lapse in Swift’s usually nebulous satire.

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Swift also describes the ‘modest proposer’ as being coldly and moronically logical. The

proposer treats the children of peasants like objects and commodities to be bought and sold while

admitting that he has no children of the proper age himself. Swift repeatedly incorporates the

common British view of Irish peasants when the proposer refers to raising poor Irish children

like cattle, and compares children of Dublin to pigs and suggests roasting them alive. Swift all

but calls the proposer and other high minded people of his time black hearted villains and

throughout the pamphlet the proposer refers to his plan as his ‘scheme:’ a blatant satire. The

proposer is perhaps the epitome of satire and an effigy of the crimes of the ruling class.

Swift’s satires, though they vary greatly in specific subject matter, all have one consistent

target, the idiosyncrasies of human nature. In Lilliputia Swift satirizes the saber rattlers and

warmongers of his time yes, but he also attacks the existence of bureaucracy and warmongering

in its entirety. Secondly, in Brobdingnag Swift shows the oddities of generalizations when he

substitutes the ancient Greeks for the Brobdingnagians and illustrates how despite the miserliness

of most of the populace, the Europeans saw the Greeks as all being like the great thinkers of the

time, or the Brobdingnagian king in this case. Third, in Laputa Swift criticizes people who think

too far outside the box, and how some ‘new’ and ‘intelligent’ are oxymoronic when the people

celebrate both geometry and music. Finally in “A Modest Proposal” Swift portrays the British

nobility as being so self-absorbed that the idea of killing poor children for food seems reasonable

since the nobles barely recognize them as people to begin with. It is through comedy, satire and

travesty that Swift writes pieces that make one laugh at the skin deep comedy, and give a laugh

of reassignment at the deeper meanings. These are the messages Swift hides in his writing.
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