Saturday, October 12, 2019
Satirical Patterns in Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels Essay
Gulliver’s Travels: Satirical Patterns      Jonathan Swift wrote a novel in 1776 called Gulliver’s Travels. This novel along with all of his other writing followed a satirical pattern. Because of Swift’s vast knowledge in politics he was capable of creating a masterpiece completely ridiculing the government found in England. In Gulliver’s Travels, Swift brings us, the readers, to join him on journeys to worlds of complete nonsense. These worlds are different ways that allow for Swift to mock the old European government. In our reading, we followed him to a land called Lilliput, and then later to a land known as Brobdingnab. Swift uses humor and knowledge to completely ridicule European politics in these two imaginative worlds. Although Swift wrote this novel to satirize politics in his time, we are able to understand the matters presented because of their over-abundance in today’s governmental world.            Political divisions have been taking place all through history, no matter where, or when. In the first book, Swift describes two types of Lilliputians, those who wear high heels, and those who don’t. In the text it describes how the high-heeled Lilliputians are very much in favor of absolutely no change in the constitution. And accordingly, the low-heeled favored change in the constitution. This type of situation is still going strong in America. We are blessed with two types of people as well, those who favor donkeys, and those who favor elephants. Now those elephant lovers go right along side those who wore the high heels in Lilliput. Both of the high heels and republicans had achieved dominance and wanted to preserve their position. They didn’t want anything to do with a change in their go... ...any holes in the scheme that make it impossible to support a so-called perfect government.            Swift successfully completed his goal in completely and utterly belittling the political aspects of government in his day.  He has proven to us that the government has gone unchanged (except for a few bills here and there) for some two hundred years or so. The same problems back then are still present now which causes for the same ideas as Swift. The reader is able to leave his or her seat after reading the novel and understand all of the little annoyances there were about the political scheme in society in those days and compare them to today’s world. After those comparisons, the reader finds that the problems are the same as they were in Swift’s time. Works Cited Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: The new American Library Inc., 1983.
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