Satire in Gulliver's Travels

Swift's Use Of Humor In Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels is a satire that deals with the human condition.

Although social conditions change from year to year, human nature changes very slowly, if at all, and this accounts for the applicability of Swift's satire from 1726 when it was first published until today. The book is still funny because we can still see ourselves behaving like human beings in it; plus, his humor is often earthy and vulgar and we respond to it.

In each of the four parts of Gulliver's Travels, Swift deals with human beings from a different perspective. In the first part Gulliver is a "giant" with an overview of human behavior, society, and laws. We find that Swift loves to play with words and that the book is filled with funny names for people and places. In the second adventure Gulliver is reduced to a tiny "animal" with no status -- a child's pet -- to look at government as the average "little guy" is affected by it. In the third part Gulliver lives first on an island separate from the rest of the world with intellectuals, thinkers, philosophers, and scientists who think only in the abstract about the great questions of life. From there he goes to a magic island where necromancy is practiced and calls up the spirits of the dead who reveal vice and corruption throughout history. Finally, in the fourth part Swift explores the relation of human beings to the rest of the animal kingdom when Gulliver goes to the land of houyhnhnms where horses are rational beings and Yahoos (human beings) are inferior animals. As he describes human society to a talking horse, he finds human beings to be morally inferior to other animals. In all four parts of the book Swift uses fantasy and humor to critique the worst in human nature and society's institutions. He does this by forcing us to see them from an alien or unaccustomed standpoint, and he makes us laugh while we're doing it. What might otherwise be very heavy subject matter, the vice and folly of human beings, becomes ridiculous and ludicrous. What would be a depressing commentary on human life becomes fun and enjoyable reading.

In Part I about the Lilliputians, for example, he has Gulliver begin by telling us a little about his history. At a young age he was apprenticed to Master James Bates, a surgeon in London. Swift goes to a lot of trouble working up to the joke. He has Gulliver refer to his master as Mr. James Bates; then, Mr. Bates, my good master; next, Mr. Bates; then, Mr. Bates my master, and finally as my Mater Bates (a play on masturbates). It is not a coincidence that he's talking about his marriage as part of the joke: "...being advised to alter my condition I married Mrs. Mary Burton" (p. 19). His "condition" is, although it is only implied, that of a man with unmet sexual needs.

This is an example of Swift's humor when he is not pressing social commentary on us. It tends to be vulgar and to refer to private bodily functions. The humor is in talking about things not normally talked about. This could account for the book's instant popularity with children. For example, in Part II after Gulliver is found and taken home by a farmer, he describes his need to use the toilet and his efforts to communicate that need with the giants in whose home he is staying. He has been placed on a bed, too high to get down from:

was pressed to do more than one thing, which another could not do for me [relieve himself]; and therefore endeavored to make my mistress understand, that I desired to be set down on the floor; which after she had done, my bashfulness would not suffer me to express myself farther than by pointing to the door and bowing several times. The good woman with much difficulty at last perceived what I would be at; and taking me up again in her hand, walked into the garden, where she set me down. I went on one side about two hundred yards; and beckoning to her not to look or to follow me, I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature (p. 84).

Later in the same part he describes a female breast close up with magnification and states that the woman put him to ride on her nipple. Glumdalclitch, the child who kept him for a pet, invites "maids of honor" to see him. They immediately strip his clothes off and lay him "at full length in their bosoms." He complains they used him "without any manner of ceremony, like a creature who had no sort of consequence. For they would strip themselves to the skin, and put on their smocks in my presence, while I was placed on their toilet directly before their naked bodies." Later in the same passage he tells us they urinated in front of him: "Neither did they at all scruple while I was by to discharge what they had drunk, to the quantity of at least two hogsheads; in a vessel that held above three tuns" (p. 105). These entertaining ribald passages are spaced throughout the book.

More often, however, Swift makes fun of society by forcing us to see it from a different perspective. Swift uses irony in several cases, for example, when he has Gulliver explain England's form of government to his Majesty the King. Gulliver explains in propaganda-type language you might expect the government would use to make itself out as the best in the world:

the other part of the Parliament consisted of an assembly called the House of Commons, who were all principal gentlemen, freely picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their great abilities and love of their country, to represent the wisdom of the whole nation" (p. 114).

Then, the Emperor asks all kinds of revealing questions (which Gulliver does not attempt to answer, so the questions are left in the reader's mind, but anyone with eyes and ears could readily answer them):

His Majesty asked] What methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of the young nobility; and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable parts of their lives [answer, none]. What qualifications were necessary to those who are to be created new lords [answer, their only qualifications were to be born in the right families]. Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them [answer, they were responsive to all of these]. Whether those holy lords I spoke of ("the spiritual fathers of the clergy and the people") were constantly promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters, and the sanctity of their lives [answer, no], had never been compliers with the times while they were common priests or slavish prostitute chaplains to some nobleman, whose opinions they continued servilely to follow when they were admitted into that assembly [answer, everybody knows religious people have the same weaknesses as others] (pp. 114-15).

It is interesting to note that even today we have the same problems with leaders. A President, for instance, has to be rich in order to afford a campaign. Our present President was born into wealth and never had any experience that would qualify him to be President. Nearly every day we hear about government officials taking bribes and kick-backs. Priests are indicted for child molesting, and televangelists rake in money from elderly folks who are taken in by promises that the money will be used to do good in the world.

When Gulliver arrived, Lilliput was about to go to war with Blefcuscu where the "Big-Enders" lived in exile. Big-Enders were people who opened their eggs at the big end. Lilliputian religion required that eggs be opened on the small end. In the fifty-fourth chapter of the Brundrecal (like the Bible) it said, "All true believers shall open their eggs at the convenient end." Naturally, the war was between people who interpreted scripture differently.

When Gulliver helps the Emperor win a battle and brings in the enemy's ships, the Emperor then wants to reduce "the whole empire of Blefuscu into a province, and governing it by a viceroy;...destroying the Big-Endian exiles, and compelling that people to break the smaller end of their eggs; by which he would remain sole monarch of the whole world" (p. 47). Swift's use of hyperbole or exaggeration makes the whole sad mess laughable..

Not long after this, Gulliver finds out about a scheme to accuse him of high treason and put him to death. He sees a copy of "Articles of impeachment against Quinbus Flestrin, (the Man-Mountain)" [as Gulliver is called in Lilliput}. Earlier Gulliver had put out a fire in the queen's apartment by urinating on it. Now he is to be punished for his good deed: "...the said Quinbus Flestrin, in open breach of the said law, under colour of extinguishing the fire kindled in the apartment of his Majesty's most dear imperial consort, did maliciously, traitorously, and devilishly, by discharge of his urine, put out the said fire..." Article II stated "That, the said Quinbus Flestrin having brought the imperial fleet of Blefuscu into the royal port and being afterwards commanded by his Imperial Majesty to seize all the other ships...and reduce that empire to a province, to be governed by a vice-roy from hence; and to destroy and put to death not only all the Big-Endian exiles, but likewise all the people of that empire, who would not immediately forsake the Big-Endian heresy: he... like a false traitor against his most auspicious serene, Imperial Majesty, did petition to be excused...: In Article III he is accused of helping Blefuscu's ambassadors to make peace. In Article IV he is accused of planning to aid and abett the Emperor of Blefuscu.

These passages are funny because they mimic legal language so closely and because their purpose is to persecute the innocent Gulliver instead of rewarding him.

This is a ludricrous turn in the story but not outside the realm of possible, even today.

Only today, the politician's enemies get the attention of the media, and the media does the persecuting for them.

On might think from all this that the Lilliputians had great power over Gulliver. However, one must remember they are tiny people (less than 3") and Gulliver is giant size to them, tremendously bigger and physically more powerful. Their power, Swift shows, lies in the fact that Gulliver gives it to them. It could be argued that all power is gained by consent of the governed. The nature of power is such that it depends for its influence on those who accept it. This applies to evil power as well as to benevolent power. Just think, Hitler gained power completely legally -- he was elected by the people. Likewise, Gulliver makes himself docile and obedient to the Lilliputians. And of course, they are not evil. Swift presents Lilliputian government as sensible and ideal in contrast to English rule: "There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country I should be tempted to say a little in their justification." He goes on to describe improvements that could be made to English law:

All crimes against the State are punished here with the utmost severity, but if the person accused make his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death; and out of his goods or lands, the innocent person is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he hath been at in making his defense. or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the Crown. The Emperor doth also confer on him some public mark of his favour; and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city (p. 51).

This passage marks the beginning of a long list of legal reforms which include rewards for good citizenship:

Whoever can...bring sufficient proof that he hath strictly observed the laws of his country for seventy-three moons hath a claim to certain privileges, according to his quality and condition of life, with a proportionable sum of money out of a fund appropriated for that use; he likewise acquires the title of Snilpall, or Legal, which is added to his name, but doth not descend to his posterity. And these thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward.

Lilliputians chose their government officials for the good morals rather than their abilities. According to Swift, "sublime genius" is not required for good government; in fact, in an ideal government (like Lilliput's) "mistakes committed by ignorance in a virtuous disposition would never be of such fatal consequence to the public weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply and defend his corruptions (p. 52).

One of the funniest chapters in the book occurs in Part III, Chapter V, when Gulliver goes to visit an island inhabited by intellectuals, thinkers, philosophers, scientists, and inventors. These people have one inward eye and one eye straight upward. They are so engaged in thought they need a "flap," a person who walks with them and alerts them to danger and things that need attention. Again, Swift uses hyperbole (plus, incongruity) to achieve the desired hilarity. Gulliver notes that the island where the thinkers live is poorly developed, the people are in rags and ill-nourished, and none of the fields produce crops because everybody is too busy thinking to actually accomplish anything practical. One man, who lives some distance away and does things the old way, apologizes for the beauty, order, and prosperity on his farm. He isn't keeping up with the others who are more inventive and innovative than he. Then, Gulliver is invited to attend the Academy and describes the scientific projects going on: "The first man...had been eight years upon a project for extracting sun-beams out of cucumbers; which were to be put into vials, hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers." This attempt to capture solar energy is made all the more ridiculous when the researcher asks for donations because this was a very expensive season for cucumbers (p. 158).

In another room a "horrible stink" nearly drives Gulliver away. He learns the professor, the oldest and most esteemed inhabitant of the Academy, is engaged in a project "to reduce human excrement to its original food, by separating the several parts, removing the tincture it receives from the gall; making the odor exhale, and scumming off the saliva" (p. 158). The usefulness of this is not explained. Another was busy trying to turn ice into gun powder, and "a most ingenious architect...had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof and working downwards to the foundation..." A blind man was mixing colors for painters by feel and smell and was "much encouraged and esteemed by the whole fraternity." All these are Swift's examples of useless and frivolous research, the kind today's Congress, if it found out, would argue over. Some would say it was valuable; others would deem it a waste of the taxpayer's money. Swift admits that some research, if improved upon, could have practical value some day:

was highly pleased with a projector who had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labour...in an acre of ground you bury...a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other masts or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where in a few days they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their dung (p. 159).

Although they don't bury food, organic farmers today often send the pigs in to "root," that is, to turn up the soil and fertilize it before planting.

Swift describes another project to employ spiders instead of worms to make silk. The color of the silk would be determined by what was fed the spiders. This reminds me of a disatrous experiment made in the 19th century in New England when a researcher imported gypsy moth catapillars to mate with silk worms and produce a superior silk. The catepillars escaped from the laboratory, and no one would listen to the alarmed researcher when he predicted the results. With no natural enemies they moved across the country, multiplying into colonies, and eating the leaves off the trees, denuding entire forests. it's a picture Swift himself might have drawn about the human propensity to "try things," to take things to their limit despite the consequences, and the shrugging attitude everyone else took at the time.

In the same chapter Swift goes to great lengths making fun of doctors and medical treatment:

was complaining of a small fit of the colic; upon which my conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous for curing that disease..." Gulliver reports. From there, we learn what the doctor wanted to do: "He had a large pair of bellows with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and, drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more stubborn and violent he let in the muzzle while the bellows was full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the patient; then withdrew the instrument to replenish it, clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of the fundament; and this being repeated three or four times the adventitious wind would rush out, bringing the noxious along with it (like water into a pump) and the patient recovers (p. 160).

Gulliver goes on to say he saw the doctor try this on a dog who "died on the spot, and we left the doctor endeavouring to recover him by the same operation" (p. 160). Part of what makes this funny is Swift's use of medical jargon such as "adventitious wind" and "orifice of the fundament."

Gulliver describes an artist who was sowing "land with chaff." Chaff is the part of a crop that's no good and blows away. Another project was to prevent lambs from producing wool. Swift is criticizing man's propensity to take an idea to its fullest extreme, no matter what the consequences. A more recent example of this would be the development of the atom bomb to destroy human life altogether. He also exposes the desire for short-cuts (in this case, mechanical) to knowledge and wisdom: "...the most ignorant person at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosphy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance form genius or study." One scientist was making a genius machine to produce words and phrases and eventually the "truth" about everything (something like projects today to make computers write original poetry). Another short-cut in the making was to write knowledge on a wafer that could be eaten, the words in a cephalic tincture to separate and rise to the brain for effortless learning. He also makes fun of scientific justification for unethical scientific experiments: "The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because in reality all things imaginable are but nouns [italics mine]. An expedient was...that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on." An experiment to deprive human beings of their "symbolicity," or the ability to communicate with symbols, would be unethical since this ability to use symbols is what makes humans different from other animals.

Finally, Gulliver laments: "This invention would certainly have taken place...if the women in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues..."

This is followed by the observation that common people are "irreconcialable enemies to science" (p. 163).

Swift goes on in the next chapter to make fun of politics and suggests impossible improvements and schemes to persuade "monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services;" etc. And whole long list of reforms impossible because of the nature of human beings. Then he adds: "...there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some pholosophers have not maintained for truth."

Then he tells of an "ingenious doctor" who wanted to cure all the ills of the Senate by treating the senators for their illnesses.

It's funny because Swift pretends that physical ailments are the cause of senate "sickness."

The administration of "lenitives, aperitives, astersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalagics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required" would result in more unanimity, shortened debates, opening mouths that are closed, closing mouths that are open, curb petulancy, "rouse the stupid" and "damp the pert" (pp. 165-66).

Again, Swift exaggerates and carries logic to its ridiculous extreme for a comic effect that sends a message. "You take an hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size: then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such a manner, that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs thus cut off be interchanged, applying each to the head of his opposite partyman...the two half-brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull would soon come to a good understanding..." professor shows a paper to Gulliver which describes how to spot "plots and conspiracies against the Government" by examining the diet and excrement of suspected persons. "Men are never so serious, thoughtful and intent as when they are at stool;" he says, and if he was thinking about murdering the King, tincture of green would be found, "but quite different when he thought about raising an insurrection or burning the metropolis" (p. 167).

In all four parts of Gulliver's Travels a male hierarchy rules, money is used, and class distinctions are assumed in such phrases as persons of quality, gentlemen of distinction, persons of the best fashion, mean people, common people, vulgar people. All the countries Gulliver visits are run by men. It would be easy to say that Swift's critique of human nature is really a critique of the male hierarchy. However, Swift makes brief references to women throughout and nearly always they are negative. He refers to the misery of marriage, to women's vanity, selfishness, and greed. He mentions their idle, incessant chatter. The only woman in the book he likes is Glumdalclitch who is really a young girl about nine or ten years old. Swift makes fun of women but not at great length. This is understandable since it is a man's world he's criticizing.