Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Gulliver’s Travels , first published in 1726 and written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), has been called one of the first novels in English, one of the greatest satires in all of literature, and even a children’s classic (though any edition for younger readers is usually quite heavily abridged).

How should we respond to this wonderfully inventive novel? Is it even a ‘novel’ in the sense we’d usually understand that term? Before we launch into an analysis of Gulliver’s Travels and consider some of these questions, it’s perhaps worth recapping the plot (briefly).

Gulliver’s Travels : summary

Gulliver’s Travels is structurally divided into four parts, each of which recounts the adventures of the title character, a ship’s surgeon named Lemuel Gulliver, amongst some imaginary fantastical land.

In the first part, Gulliver is shipwrecked and knocked unconscious on the island of Lilliput, which is inhabited by tiny people. They take Gulliver prisoner, tying him to the ground, and he encounters the rival factions among the Lilliputians, such as the Big Endians and Little Endians, whose enmity started because they disagree over which side of a boiled egg to cut.

Then, he is enlisted into a campaign the Lilliputians are waging against a neighbouring island, Blefuscu. Gulliver drags the enemy fleet ashore so their invasion is foiled, and the Lilliputians honour and thank him – that is, until he refuses to be further drawn into the two countries’ war, at which moment they turn against him. It doesn’t help when he urinates on a fire to help put it out.

Gulliver takes refuge on Blefuscu, until a boat is washed ashore and he uses it to return to England, where he raises money for his family before embarking on a second voyage.

This time, in the second part of Gulliver’s Travels , our hero finds himself in Brobdingnag, a country which is inhabited by giants, rather than miniature people. When his ship runs aground, it is attacked by giants, and Gulliver is taken prisoner and given to the princess of Brobdingnag, a forty-feet-high girl named Glumdalclitch, as her plaything.

After arguing with the King over political matters – with Gulliver defending English attitudes and the King mocking them – Gulliver is picked up by a giant eagle and plopped into the sea, where he is rescued by a ship.

In the third part of the novel, Gulliver finds himself taken prisoner once again, this time by pirates, and taken to the floating island of Laputa. On a nearby island, Balnibarbi, he meets mad scientists and inventors who are engaged in absurd experiments: trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers, or building a house from the roof down.

On a neighbouring island, Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver meets some magicians who can summon the dead; they summon numerous historical figures for him, including Julius Caesar, Homer, and Aristotle.

After this, on the island of Luggnagg, Gulliver meets the Struldbrugs: creatures who are immortal. However, this simply means they are foolish and weak than old men back in England, because they’ve had much longer to develop more folly and more illnesses.

Gulliver leaves Laputa behind, becoming a ship’s captain and continuing his voyages. Next, he encounters apelike creatures who, when he attacks one of their number, climb a tree and start discharging their excrement upon his head. (Excrement turns up a lot on Gulliver’s Travels , and Swift seems to have been obsessed by it.)

Gulliver is saved from a literal shower of sh … dung by the arrival of a horse, but this turns out to be a horse endowed with reason and language. Indeed, Gulliver soon learns that these horses rule this strange land: the horses, known as Houyhnhnms, are the masters, and the apelike creatures, known as Yahoos, are their semi-wild slaves. What’s more, Gulliver is horrified to learn that the Yahoos bear more than a passing resemblance to him, and to the human form!

What follows in this fourth part of the novel is a lengthy debate between Gulliver and the Houyhnhnms, who repeatedly show up the folly or evil of human behaviour as Gulliver describes it to them: war, money, and the legal system are all calmly but firmly taken apart by the intelligent horses.

However, Gulliver comes to prefer the company of the Houyhnhnms to the Yahoos, especially when he discovers, to his shock, that female Yahoos are attracted to him as one of their own kind. Gulliver resolves to stay with his new equine friends and shun humanity forever. He admires, above all else, the Houyhnhnms’ devotion to reason over baser instincts or desires.

But he is not allowed to stay with them for long. Fearing that he may inspire the Yahoos to rise up against their horsy overlords, they tell him to leave, and Gulliver regretfully builds a boat, is picked up by a Portuguese ship, and makes his way back to England. However, he struggles to readjust to human society, after he has spent time among the Houyhnhnms, and he prefers to pass his time in the company of the horses in his stable.

Gulliver’s Travels : analysis

We often celebrate great works of literature for their generosity of spirit: we talk of Shakespeare’s ‘humanity’, of Wordsworth’s empathy, George Eliot’s humanistic ability to feel for another person. But Swift is in quite a different tradition. He was disgusted by us all with our filthy bodies and rotten, wrong-headed attitudes.

Yet he wrote a great work of literature in Gulliver’s Travels , which tells us much about who we really are, especially through his depiction of the Yahoos, and who we could be, through Gulliver’s conversations with the Houyhnhnms.

Perhaps the key aspect of the novel here is its satire: it means that we can never be sure when Swift is being serious and when he is pulling our leg, when he is inviting us to share Gulliver’s views and when he wishes us to long to clout the silly fool round the head. That, too, is one of the signs of a timeless novel: its multifaceted quality. Gulliver’s Travels has more facets than you can shake a mucky stick at.

The same difficulty of interpretation – or divining authorial intention and meaning – often attends great works of satire. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), which was probably an influence on Swift and Gulliver’s Travels , is similarly difficult to analyse in terms of its author’s own views. Critics can’t quite agree whether More is pulling the reader’s leg in Utopia or sincerely offering a vision of a perfect world.

There are, however, some clues that much of the book, if not the whole thing, is supposed to be satirical: it’s hard to see the staunchly Roman Catholic More seriously advocating divorce by mutual consent, something that is encouraged in the book, nor is it likely that he was in favour of women priests, very much a feature of More’s looking-glass island republic.

So the same issue probably attends Gulliver’s Travels . Is Gulliver right to view the Houyhnhnms as the pinnacle of rational humanism – something that actual humans should aspire to emulate? Or should we be shocked by the Houyhnhnms’ proposal that the Yahoos should be forcibly sterilised, even exterminated, as a decisively in human attitude towards their fellow living creatures?

Swift’s disgust with his fellow humans was real, especially in the last few decades of his life when he wrote Gulliver’s Travels , but this does not mean he was not acutely aware of the dangers attendant on such misanthropy. It’s one thing to have a dim view of the human race as falling short of what they could achieve; it’s quite another to suggest that, because they succumb to wars and other dangerous follies, they deserve to be wiped from the face of the earth.

It’d be like a satirist writing in the present century suggesting that, because humans have been the main drivers behind climate change, the best thing would be for all human life to be annihilated from the planet. It’d be a solution to the problem (or part of it), but it wouldn’t be a very morally humane one.

And is Swift’s book, for all that, a novel as such? Like Robinson Crusoe , Defoe’s pioneering work published seven years earlier, Gulliver’s Travels presented itself to the reader as a genuine account, recounting four voyages made by Lemuel Gulliver.

Readers embarking on their journey of reading the book in 1726 may well have been forgiven for thinking it a travel book, like the bestselling books by explorers of the day such as William Dampier (who was one of the first to travel to Australia, around whose coast Swift locates the islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu). But then the book takes a fantastical turn and we gradually realise we are in a work of the imagination.

So it’s perhaps best to answer the question ‘is Gulliver’s Travels a novel?’ with a cautious ‘yes … but only if we bear in mind it was written before the word “novel” had even first been applied to works like Gulliver’s Travels .’

3 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels”

I heard that the severe-faced Swift claimed to have laughed only twice in his life – once when Tom was swallowed by a cow on stage in Henry Fielding’s “Tom Thumb the Great” (the little man with a great soul – or mirror image of Prime Minister Robert Walpole, aka “The Great Man” – presumably “with a diminutive soul” in Fielding’s satire). I can’t remember the other time Swift laughed. But he can sure get others to do so!

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Gulliver's Travels

By jonathan swift.

Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World , is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the “travellers’ tales” literary sub-genre. It is widely considered Swift’s magnum opus (masterpiece) and is his most celebrated work, as well as one of the indisputable classics of English literature.

The book became tremendously popular as soon as it was published (Alexander Pope stated that “it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery”), and it is likely that it has never been out of print since then. George Orwell declared it to be among the six most indispensable books in world literature. It is claimed the inspiration for Gulliver came from the sleeping giant profile of the Cavehill in Belfast.

Source: Swift, Jonathan. (1906). Gulliver's Travels . London; Routledge.

  • Year Published: 1906
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: Ireland
  • Flesch–Kincaid Level: 10.1
  • Word Count: 102,331
  • Genre: Satire
  • Keywords: fantasy, satire, society
  • ✎ Cite This

Swift, J. (1906). Gulliver's Travels . (Lit2Go ed.). Retrieved March 13, 2024, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/177/gullivers-travels/

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels . Lit2Go Edition. 1906. Web. https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/177/gullivers-travels/ >. March 13, 2024.

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels , Li2Go edition, (1906), accessed March 13, 2024, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/177/gullivers-travels/ .

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  • Literature Notes
  • Book Summary
  • About Gulliver's Travels
  • Character List
  • Summary and Analysis
  • Part I: Chapter 1
  • Part I: Chapter 2
  • Part I: Chapter 3
  • Part I: Chapter 4
  • Part I: Chapter 5
  • Part I: Chapter 6
  • Part I: Chapter 7
  • Part I: Chapter 8
  • Part II: Chapter 1
  • Part II: Chapter 2
  • Part II: Chapter 3
  • Part II: Chapter 4
  • Part II: Chapter 5
  • Part II: Chapter 6
  • Part II: Chapter 7
  • Part II: Chapter 8
  • Part III: Chapter 1
  • Part III: Chapter 2
  • Part III: Chapter 3
  • Part III: Chapter 4
  • Part III: Chapter 5
  • Part III: Chapter 6
  • Part III: Chapter 7
  • Part III: Chapter 8
  • Part III: Chapter 9
  • Part III: Chapter 10
  • Part III: Chapter 11
  • Part IV: Chapter 1
  • Part IV: Chapter 2
  • Part IV: Chapter 3
  • Part IV: Chapter 4
  • Part IV: Chapter 5
  • Part IV: Chapter 6
  • Part IV: Chapter 7
  • Part IV: Chapter 8
  • Part IV: Chapter 9
  • Part IV: Chapter 10
  • Part IV: Chapter 11
  • Part IV: Chapter 12
  • Character Analysis
  • Lemuel Gulliver
  • The Lilliputians
  • The Brobdingnagians
  • The Houyhnhnms
  • Character Map
  • Jonathan Swift Biography
  • Critical Essays
  • Philosophical and Political Background of Gulliver's Travels
  • Swift's Satire in Gulliver's Travels
  • Gulliver as a Dramatis Persona
  • Full Glossary for Gulliver's Travels
  • Essay Questions
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  • Cite this Literature Note

Gulliver's Travels is an adventure story (in reality, a misadventure story) involving several voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, who, because of a series of mishaps en route to recognized ports, ends up, instead, on several unknown islands living with people and animals of unusual sizes, behaviors, and philosophies, but who, after each adventure, is somehow able to return to his home in England where he recovers from these unusual experiences and then sets out again on a new voyage.

Book I: When the ship Gulliver is traveling on is destroyed in a storm, Gulliver ends up on the island of Lilliput, where he awakes to find that he has been captured by Lilliputians, very small people — approximately six inches in height. Gulliver is treated with compassion and concern. In turn, he helps them solve some of their problems, especially their conflict with their enemy, Blefuscu, an island across the bay from them. Gulliver falls from favor, however, because he refuses to support the Emperor's desire to enslave the Blefuscudians and because he "makes water" to put out a palace fire. Gulliver flees to Blefuscu, where he converts a large war ship to his own use and sets sail from Blefuscu eventually to be rescued at sea by an English merchant ship and returned to his home in England.

Book II: As he travels as a ship's surgeon, Gulliver and a small crew are sent to find water on an island. Instead they encounter a land of giants. As the crew flees, Gulliver is left behind and captured. Gulliver's captor, a farmer, takes him to the farmer's home where Gulliver is treated kindly, but, of course, curiously. The farmer assigns his daughter, Glumdalclitch, to be Gulliver's keeper, and she cares for Gulliver with great compassion. The farmer takes Gulliver on tour across the countryside, displaying him to onlookers. Eventually, the farmer sells Gulliver to the Queen. At court, Gulliver meets the King, and the two spend many sessions discussing the customs and behaviors of Gulliver's country. In many cases, the King is shocked and chagrined by the selfishness and pettiness that he hears Gulliver describe. Gulliver, on the other hand, defends England.

One day, on the beach, as Gulliver looks longingly at the sea from his box (portable room), he is snatched up by an eagle and eventually dropped into the sea. A passing ship spots the floating chest and rescues Gulliver, eventually returning him to England and his family.

Book III: Gulliver is on a ship bound for the Levant. After arriving, Gulliver is assigned captain of a sloop to visit nearby islands and establish trade. On this trip, pirates attack the sloop and place Gulliver in a small boat to fend for himself. While drifting at sea, Gulliver discovers a Flying Island. While on the Flying Island, called Laputa, Gulliver meets several inhabitants, including the King. All are preoccupied with things associated with mathematics and music. In addition, astronomers use the laws of magnetism to move the island up, down, forward, backward, and sideways, thus controlling the island's movements in relation to the island below (Balnibarbi). While in this land, Gulliver visits Balnibarbi, the island of Glubbdubdrib, and Luggnagg. Gulliver finally arrives in Japan where he meets the Japanese emperor. From there, he goes to Amsterdam and eventually home to England.

Book IV: While Gulliver is captain of a merchant ship bound for Barbados and the Leeward Islands, several of his crew become ill and die on the voyage. Gulliver hires several replacement sailors in Barbados. These replacements turn out to be pirates who convince the other crew members to mutiny. As a result, Gulliver is deposited on a "strand" (an island) to fend for himself. Almost immediately, he is discovered by a herd of ugly, despicable human-like creatures who are called, he later learns, Yahoos. They attack him by climbing trees and defecating on him. He is saved from this disgrace by the appearance of a horse, identified, he later learns, by the name Houyhnhnm. The grey horse (a Houyhnhnm) takes Gulliver to his home, where he is introduced to the grey's mare (wife), a colt and a foal (children), and a sorrel nag (the servant). Gulliver also sees that the Yahoos are kept in pens away from the house. It becomes immediately clear that, except for Gulliver's clothing, he and the Yahoos are the same animal. From this point on, Gulliver and his master (the grey) begin a series of discussions about the evolution of Yahoos, about topics, concepts, and behaviors related to the Yahoo society, which Gulliver represents, and about the society of the Houyhnhnms.

Despite his favored treatment in the grey steed's home, the kingdom's Assembly determines that Gulliver is a Yahoo and must either live with the uncivilized Yahoos or return to his own world. With great sadness, Gulliver takes his leave of the Houyhnhnms. He builds a canoe and sails to a nearby island where he is eventually found hiding by a crew from a Portuguese ship. The ship's captain returns Gulliver to Lisbon, where he lives in the captain's home. Gulliver is so repelled by the sight and smell of these "civilized Yahoos" that he can't stand to be around them. Eventually, however, Gulliver agrees to return to his family in England. Upon his arrival, he is repelled by his Yahoo family, so he buys two horses and spends most of his days caring for and conversing with the horses in the stable in order to be as far away from his Yahoo family as possible.

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On the island of Lilliput: a colour print from an 1860s edition of Gulliver’s Travels. Photograph: Alamy

The 100 best novels, No 3 – Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels comes third in our list of the best novels written in English. Robert McCrum discusses a satirical masterpiece that’s never been out of print

S even years after the publication of Robinson Crusoe , the great Tory essayist and poet Jonathan Swift – inspired by the Scriblerus club, whose members included John Gay and Alexander Pope – composed a satire on travel narratives that became an immediate bestseller. According to Gay, Gulliver was soon being read “from the cabinet council to the nursery”. In its afterlife as a classic, Gulliver’s Travels works on many levels. First, it’s a masterpiece of sustained and savage indignation, “furious, raging, obscene”, according to Thackeray . Swift’s satirical fury is directed against almost every aspect of early 18th-century life: science, society, commerce and politics. Second, stripped of Swift’s dark vision, it becomes a wonderful travel fantasy for children, a perennial favourite that continues to inspire countless versions, in books and films. Finally, as a polemical tour de force, full of wild imagination, it became a source for Voltaire, as well as the inspiration for a Telemann violin suite, Philip K Dick’s science-fiction story The Prize Ship , and, perhaps most influential of all, George Orwell’s Animal Farm .

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver (to give its original title) comes in four parts, and opens with Gulliver’s shipwreck on the island of Lilliput, whose inhabitant are just six inches high. The most famous and familiar part of the book (“Lilliputian” soon became part of the language) is a satirical romp in which Swift takes some memorable shots at English political parties and their antics, especially the controversy on the matter of whether boiled eggs should be opened at the big or the little end.

Next, Gulliver’s ship, the Adventure, gets blown off course and he is abandoned on Brobdingnag whose inhabitants are giants with a proportionately gigantic landscape. Here, having been dominant on Lilliput, Gulliver is exhibited as a curious midget, and has a number of local dramas such as fighting giant wasps. He also gets to discuss the condition of Europe with the King, who concludes with Swiftian venom that “the bulk of your natives [are] the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

In the third part of his travels, Gulliver visits the flying island of Laputa (a place-name also referenced in Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove ), and Swift mounts a dark and complicated assault on the speculations of contemporary science (notably spoofing the attempted extraction of sunbeams from cucumbers). Finally, in the section that influenced Orwell ( Gulliver’s Travels was one of his favourite books), Swift describes the country of the Houyhnhnms, horses with the qualities of rational men. These he contrasts with the loathsome Yahoos, brutes in human shape. Orwell would later echo Swift’s misanthropy, looking ahead to a time “when the human race had finally been overthrown.”

At the end of it all, Gulliver returns home from his travels in a state of alienated wisdom, purged and matured by his experiences. “I write,” he concludes, “for the noblest end, to inform and instruct mankind… I write without any view to profit or praise. I never suffer a word to pass that may possibly give the least offence, even to those who are most ready to take it. So that I hope I may with justice pronounce myself an author perfectly blameless…”

When he died in 1745, Swift, remembered as “the gloomy Dean”, was buried in Dublin with the famous epitaph “ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit” (where fierce indignation can no further tear apart his heart) inscribed on his tomb.

A note on the text: Swift probably started writing Gulliver’s Travels in 1720 (when Crusoe fever was at it height), and delivered the manuscript to the London publisher Benjamin Motte in March 1726. The book was published, anonymously, at top speed. Motte, who sensed a bestseller, used several presses to foil any attempt at piracy, and made many cuts to reduce the risk of prosecution. The first edition appeared, in two volumes, on 26 October 1726, priced 8s 6d, and sold out its first printing in less than a week. In 1735 the Irish publisher, George Faulkner printed a collection of Swift’s works. Volume III became Gulliver’s Travels , based on a working copy of the original manuscript. The textual history of Gulliver’s Travels now becomes incredibly complicated, and Swift later disowned most versions, including Motte’s first edition, saying it was so much altered that “I do hardly know mine own work”. Later scholarly editions of Swift have to choose between Motte and Faulkner, but whatever the version it has never been out of print since the day it first appeared.

Three more from Jonathan Swift

A Tale of a Tub (1704); A Modest Proposal, an essay (1729); Verses on the Death of Dr Swift (1739)

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Gulliver's Travels

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Perspective Theme Icon

Perspective

Above all, Gulliver’s Travels is a novel about perspective. While the story is abundant with potential morals, the strongest and most consistent message is a lesson in relativism: one’s point of view is contingent upon one’s own physical and social circumstances and looking at people’s circumstances explains a lot about their respective viewpoints. Gulliver explicitly lectures the reader on relativism, explaining how England’s ideas of beauty, goodness, and fairness are radically different from notions of…

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Moral vs. Physical Power

By placing Gulliver amongst people of extremely different physical circumstances than his own, Gulliver’s adventures dramatize the distinction between moral and physical power. In Lilliput, Gulliver’s huge size advantage over the Lilliputians would make it easy for him to treat them like inhuman vermin and to assert himself against them by physical force (he even imagines squashing them by the handfuls during their initial encounter on the beach). But Gulliver’s willingness to empathize, reason with…

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Society and the State

As Gulliver travels from society to society, he observes each one’s organization in detail and compares and contrasts it with the English state. Though all of the societies visited are flawed, several possess some admirable qualities and almost all of them play out the consequences of a particular utopian ideal. Their admirable qualities include the peaceful Brobdingnagian king ’s disgust at the thought of gunpowder and rule by violent force; the Lilliputian king ’s initial…

Society and the State Theme Icon

Gulliver’s Travels also considers the value of knowledge and its best applications in life. The novel surveys many different kinds of knowledge and examines the effect they have on the people possessing them. Gulliver ’s worldly knowledge about other societies and lifestyles makes him tolerant and open-minded person, able to see both sides of most stories while many of the minds around him are more rigid. Still, it’s unclear if this knowledge actually serves Gulliver…

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Truth and Deception

Much of the novel’s plot action is driven by deceptions, and Gulliver takes note of the inhabitants’ feelings about truth and lying in every country he visits. Deceptions that drive plot action include the Lilliputians ’ secret plot to starve Gulliver to death and Gulliver’s subsequent deceits to escape Lilliput. Then, in Brobdingnag, Gulliver deliberately conceals as many of his mishaps he can from Glumdalclitch in order to try to maintain his dignity and freedom…

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Gulliver’s Travels

Introduction to gulliver’s travels.

A very popular satire as well as one of the favorite children’s books, Gulliver’s Travels, is widely taught in schools and colleges as a syllabus book across the globe. Gulliver’s Travels was written by Jonathan Swift , an Irish author. This satirical travelogue was first published in 1726 and hit the headlines at that time for its biting satire and hidden attacks on the politicians, religious clergy, and a plethora of travelogues appearing at that time. The book has achieved the status of the classics of the English language, has impacted the world, specifically the children. Robert McCrum has considered it one of the best 100 novels during his calculated assessment of the best 100 novels in 2015.

Summary of Gulliver’s Travels

The story starts with the self-revelatory letter of Lemuel Gulliver, an English surgeon, who takes to navigate seas to lift his spirits after a business failure. However, the story goes in a linear fashion in that he goes from one place to another and narrates important happenings in an impassioned tone .

One of the first travels is to the world of Lilliput, the land of the small people in the size of 6 inches(15cm), where he lands after his ship is torn apart during a storm. He finds himself in the captivity of the little people who tie him with tiny threads and shots needle-like arrows at him when he tries to free himself. Soon he finds himself learning their language to converse with them. He finds them highly honorable people with traits of hospitality, though, a bit violent. He visits their land and joins them in everything until he differs from them in the matter of war with their neighbor, Blefuscu, though, he helps them bring the Blefuscu’s whole fleet singlehandedly. He also learns about their interesting politics, differences, creeds, and concepts about eating, breaking eggs, and superstitions in doing certain things. Despite providing great assistance and having such an understanding, he soon becomes a pariah for committing supposed treason of urinating on the regal palace that wants immediate assistance during the fire. Sensing a threat to his life, he flees to Blefuscu and sets sail back to England.

He stays with his family for a while and soon starts another voyage after being fed up with his stay. He soon finds himself coincidently landing in Brobdingnag, the land of the giants in comparison to which Gulliver himself looks like a Lilliputian. When one of the giants, working as a farmer, discovers him in the field, they are very surprised to look at such a small creature and play with Gulliver, while Gulliver minutely observes and records their social manners. Not only their giantess but also their social life where politicking is non-existent seems entirely different from the Lilliputians. The farmer and his daughter Glumdalclitch take care of him, also exhibited him for money. He was very exhausted and couldn’t perform anymore.

That’s when the farmer sells Gulliver to the Queen for ransom. Gulliver makes an exception of going to live with the Queen only if Glumdalclitch came with him as a caretaker. During his stay, he is abducted by a monkey, fights giant wasps when they entered the small house that is specially made for him by the Queen. However, finally, he leaves them when an eagle accidentally takes his cage and drops him in the sea.

During his next travel, he lands on the land of Laputa, a floating island, where intellectuals enjoy life. Despite their intellectuality, they wreak havoc . On the other land, Balnibarbi. The competitive scientific research going on both the lands is entirely insane as far as the welfare of the residents of both the lands is concerned. Their experiments were just a blind pursuit of science rather than to meet the practical ends like extracting sunbeams from cucumber, softening the marble in order to use as a pillow. This was a satire on Royal Society and especially Issac Newton on a professional as well as personal level.  Swift never really understood the purpose of Newton’s experiments and theories, also his stance on religion. The mention of rivalry between Laputa and Balnibarbi is in reality the power relations between British and Ireland. Laputa intimidates Balnibarbi into blocking the sun or rain or crushing their land by lowering Laputa. Mocking the threats from the English to the Irish.

From there Gulliver reaches Glubbdubdrib, where he meets and converses with historical figures from antiquity and the present time. He also visits Struldbrugs and Luggnag where he meets cynics and then visiting Japan, he comes back where rest is nowhere, for he again departs for the land of Houyhnhnms where horses are rational animals , while Yahoos are brute apes resembling the humans. Gulliver lives there for some time to exchange views about his world and their world. He even decides to spend the rest of his life with them as he appreciates their sincerity, hard work honesty, and simple life principles. Many months pass, Gulliver almost settles at the land of Houyhnhnms. After an unfortunate incident, however, Gullivers time with them comes to an end.

At the assembly of Houyhnhnms, Gulliver was ruled as a Yahoo who can’t live with his master anymore because it would a threat to civilization. His master gives him time to build a canoe to go back to his land and then returns. He is heartbroken but the master of  Houyhnhnms encourages him to find his destiny. When he boards a Portuguese ship, the borders are surprised when Gulliver expresses his disgust at the sight of Captain Pedro de Mendez who Gulliver thought of as yahoo but was a kind and wise man. He reaches England with the claim of having English rights on the lands he has visited. He couldn’t ingest the idea of him living with Yahoos, so he avoids his family and spends time in stables talking to his horses.

Major Themes in Gulliver’s Travels

  • Human Physical Condition: The mention of diminutive human beings, then giants, and then of different shapes in different voyages Gulliver comes across show the main thematic strand that runs throughout the book. In the voyage to Lilliput, he sees Lilliputians, and in the voyage to Brobdingnag, he comes across giants. He also meets different people of different shapes, sizes, and different mental capacities during his voyages to Glubbdubdrib and the land of Houyhnhnms where he meets brutish apes as well as rational horses. These are different physical conditions of human beings that demonstrate the deep observation of the author as pointed out through Gulliver’s experience.
  • Importance of Education: Gulliver has stressed the importance of education in the very early pages of his voyages, declaring that most of his leisure is spent reading. His encounter with the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians makes him aware of different types of knowledge being pursued by these creatures. However, it is quite contradictory that creatures, like human beings such as Yahoos, run away from knowledge, while the Houyhnhnms are pursuing knowledge and education as sane creatures.
  • Narrow-Mindedness and Enlightenment: In the first voyage Gulliver observes shrewdness, judging nature, violence, and the narrow-mindedness of the Lilliputians. He also witnesses the enlightenment during his other voyages and makes the readers aware of how political situations turn from good to bad and from bad to ugly just over the petty issues of breaking eggs and urinating, though, it might be a benign purpose. Even his journey to the land of Houyhnhnms and Glubbdubdrib makes certain points about this narrowmindedness as well as enlightenment that even the horses are able to be rational when Yahoos want to stay in the darkness of life as well as mind.
  • Otherness: The thematic strand of otherness emerges when Gulliver could not merge in the Lilliputians due to his physique as well as manners and understanding of the culture. What he thinks of their narrowmindedness is their cultural politics and antagonism against the Blefuscudians. The same goes for his other voyages including his voyage to Brobdingnag and Glubdubdrib where he is unsuitable and unfit among the natives; he is either too small, too clever, or to dunce to mix up with them. This is actually the cultural otherness that he could not merge in any of these lands nor did the locals consider him a local person.
  • Perspective and Relevance: The individual perspective and its relevance to the culture is another theme that runs through the book. It happens that he is a Mountain Man in Lilliput but a human specimen in Brobdingnag. Not only does the perspective about his physicality change but also the relevance of the perspective changes from land to land and people to people. When he meets Houyhnhnms in their land, he comes to know that even animals could be rational when their perspective and relevance changes. His final arrival to the United Kingdom opens up new vistas of life for him to understand.
  • Travel: Travel is another major theme of the book as it is actually a travelogue and tells its readers that they learn new things and new perspectives during travels, which eventually becomes an adventure too. Gulliver comes to know about the existence of new people, along with their strange and odd customs and conventions such as Lilliputians even fight on the breaking of eggs and urination, while the Brobdingnagians do not see such things from this perspective. Had Gulliver not traveled so far, he would not have come to know such things. Moreover, it also sheds light on the spirit of that time about travel and exploration.
  • Question of Truth: Man has always been in search of truth and reality and nature of truth. The question of truth looms large in the background of Gulliver’s travels. Even Gulliver as a narrator is not a reliable person as the readers question his authenticity on account of the fantasies he has weaved and the chances he has taken to travel to these far-off lands, for every reader knows that such lands do not exist. However, Jonathan Swift has done every effort to make the story feels true.
  • Moral versus Physical Power: The theme of moral and physical power emerges when Gulliver faces the dilemma of attacking the Blefuscudians at the behest of the king of Lilliput and he knows if he does not use his physical power, he is liable to face consequences. Therefore, he uses moral power but faces consequences. He also learns that every land has its own ethical framework regarding the use of physical power such as the Brobdingnagians do not use physical power so often as the Lilliputians.
  • Governance: The issue of government also comes up during different travels; somewhere it is rational and despotic while at some other places it is democratic and rational such as in the land of Houyhnhnm, while the Lilliputians are despotic.

Major Characters in Gulliver’s Travels

  • Lemuel Gulliver : Despite being the main narrator and protagonist of the book, Gulliver is neither heroic nor legendary but an ordinary human being due to the misanthropy he demonstrates by the end of the book. However, his observations of human nature, if it is small like the Lilliputians and giant like that of the Brobdingnagians and wily or cruel like that of the Yahoos, show that he has uncovered a secret to understanding the human soul better. However, despite his love for Houyhnhnm and his spite for the Yahoos, he does not leave human society and ultimately returns to England to live and demonstrate his hatred for the man. With some of the best traits, Gulliver also shows that he is gullible as well as a non-savvy person who shows what he comes across during his travels.
  • The Emperor of Lilliput: Lilliput, the land of small people, is ruled by the emperor, who like all other Lilliputians, is just six inches in height. However, the powers that he wields over their lives are limitless yet to Gulliver he seems quite a sinister character who is not only an expert in politics but also adept in strategy. Gulliver learns about the frightening aspects of his personality through the harsh punishments he awards to his subjects over minor mistakes or crimes and that too in politics. However, his traits of hospitality and culinary tastes rather amaze Gulliver.
  • Brobdingnagian Queen: The queen is another important figure in the text who comes across Gulliver during his voyage to the land of Brobdingnag. She falls in love with him as she keeps him with her to play with the little man as he is compared to their giant statures. During his stay at the palace, he feels safe and satisfied with her but also his interaction with her becomes significant, belittling other living or dead characters, even his wife to some extent.
  • Lord Munodi: Although Lord is not a significant character in the text, he wins the attention of Gulliver on account of his being the governor of the land of Lagado who is still interested in Gulliver about knowing him and informing him of his land where he rules supreme amid the theoretical delusions of its intellectuals. Isolated in his own estate, Munodi suffers from acute alienation that seems similar to Gulliver, showing him that human predicaments are not different whether it is the far-off land or England.
  • The Farmer: The importance of farmer from the land of Brobdingnag, is the first person who comes into contact with Gulliver when he accidentally lands there. Gulliver comes to know about his rationality and his credulity that he also believes that tiny creatures like Gulliver, too, could be rational. He uses Gulliver as an object of entertainment to earn money by using him as labor. His greedy and simplemindedness costs Gulliver very dearly which shows the trait of the few Brobdingnagians’ greedy nature but is non-violent.
  • Reldresal: Reldresal is the aide of the king of Lilliput. As his principal secretary, he acts as an intermediary between the king and Gulliver and exploits things to make Gulliver understand the situation. He communicates with Gulliver and makes arrangements for his stay and also for his services to the land of Lilliput.
  • Glumdalclitch: Gulliver’s first caretaker in the land of Brobdingnag is the farmer’s young daughter, Glumdalclithc, a nine-year-old, who is almost a kid if measured from the age of Gulliver’s world yet very young to seem to take care of Gulliver. She cared for Gulliver in the land of giants where a minor mistake could cost his life. Later, when royalty comes to know about the absence of good caretakers for Gulliver, she again finds herself in the court to continue to protect Gulliver until the bird picks him up.
  • The King: The Brobdingnagian king is comparatively generous and liberal when he demonstrates when meeting Gulliver. He prefers peace over war and shows his intellect and his expertise in political science and other statecrafts. His erudition displays itself during his political debate with Gulliver about English history and politics.
  • Yahoos: The importance of Yahoos lies in their humanlike shapes that they keep themselves unkempt and illiterate and behave like animals without giving a second thought to their actions. Their hairy bodies cripple their mental faculties, too, making them subservient to Houyhnhnms, ironic governance that runs contrary to what Gulliver has been experiencing in England. Their worst impact on Gulliver is that he considers himself one of them.
  • Houyhnhnms: These creatures are horses in shapes but highly rational in thinking and dealing with Gulliver, as they display all moral traits necessary for good human beings. Their rationality and association with socialism what Gulliver likes the most.

Writing Style of Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is written in the first-person narrative . The presentation and commentary are through Gulliver’s experience of whom he meets and what he sees during his voyages. The presentation occurs in a very simple and direct language that shows that Gulliver knows how to reach his audiences . Most of the words have been coined as they do not exist in English or any other language. Generalization has been used to make them common for the readers to understand. Since then, the words have taken meanings of their own, specifically, Lilliput, Yahoo, and Houyhnhnms. The sentence style is quite simple but sometimes becomes very intricate and complex when Swift becomes philosophical and comments on the politics and culture of the land Gulliver visits. Swift turns to irony , satire, hyperbole , and metaphors to highlight thematic ideas.

Analysis of the Literary Devices in Gulliver’s Travels

  • Action: The main action of the text comprises different voyages that Gulliver undertakes to escape the humdrum of England. The falling action occurs at several places in travels such as when he is awarded a death sentence in Lilliput or when he falls down from the grip of an eagle in Glubbdubdrib. However, rising action occurs when he comes to the point that human beings are not worthy creatures to stay on the face of this earth blessed to them by God.
  • Allusion : The book shows good use of different allusions as given in the below examples, i. Although Mr Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire , where his Father dwelt, yet I have heard him say, his Family came from Oxfordshire ; to confirm which, I have observed in the Church-Yard at Banbury ,* in that County, several Tombs and Monuments of the Gullivers . (The Publishers to the Reader) ii. For it was ever my Opinion, that there must be a Balance of Earth to counterpoise the great Continent of Tartary ; and therefore they ought to correct their Maps and Charts, by joining this vast Tract of Land to the North-west Parts of america ; wherein I shall be ready to lend them my Assistance. (Chapter-4) iii. This Academy is not an entire single Building, but a Continuation of several Houses on both Sides of a Street; which growing waste,*was purchased and applyed to that Use. (Chapter-4) iv. The Continent of which this Kingdom is a part, extends itself, as I have Reason to believe, Eastward to that unknown Tract of america , Westward to California , and North to the Pacifick Ocean. (Chapter-7) The first example shows the reference to England and different places, the second to an old race and a place, the third to Aristotle’s academy, and the last to America .
  • Antagonist : Although it is a book of travelogue and not a novel that Gulliver presents few antagonists in the first 3 parts. However, in the 4th adventure by the end, he comes to know that by sketching Yahoos as the most detestable characters, Gulliver wants to say that we human beings are enemies of ourselves. Therefore, apart from the Lilliputian kingdom, the jealous courtier in Brobdingnag kingdom, the mindless scientists in Laputa and neighboring kingdoms, Yahoos are the true antagonists of this travelogue.
  • Conflict : The text shows both external and internal conflicts. The external conflict is going on between Gulliver and his views about different societies that are also an internal contact. That is why he paints the detestable picture of Yahoos in the last voyage.
  • Characters: The text shows both static as well as dynamic characters. The young man, Gulliver, is a dynamic character as he shows a considerable transformation in his behavior and conduct by the end of the book when starts hating the people. However, all other characters are static as they do not show or witness any transformation such as Reldresal, the Lilliputians, and even Gulliver’s own family members.
  • Climax : The climax in the text occurs when Gulliver starts loving the land of horses and horses in return to hating human beings after painting them dirty creatures, equating them to vermin.
  • Foreshadowing : The text shows many instances of foreshadows as given in the following examples, i. I laid them out in learning Navigation, and other Parts of the Mathematicks, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my Fortune to do. (Chapter-1) ii. I had been for some Hours extremely pressed by the Necessities of Nature; which was no Wonder, it being almost two Days since I had last disburthened myself. (Chapter-2) The mention of travel and Necessities of Nature shows the writer is fond of traveling and that he is going on some travel very soon. Both of these points foreshadow of the coming events.
  • Hyperbole : The book shows various examples of hyperboles such as, i. I felt something alive moving on my left Leg, which advancing gently forward over my Breast, came almost up to my Chin; when bending mine Eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human Creature not six Inches high,* with a Bow and Arrow in his Hands, and a Quiver at his Back. (Chapter-1) ii. The Dog following the Scent, came directly up, and taking me in his Mouth, ran strait to his Master, wagging his Tail, and set me gently on the Ground. (Chapter-5) iii. Having a Desire to see those Antients, who were most renowned for Wit and Learning, I set apart one Day on purpose. I proposed that Homer * and Aristotle might appear at the Head of all their Commentators; but these were so numerous that some Hundreds were forced to attend in the Court and outward Rooms of the Palace. (Chapter-8) All of these examples show that Swift has used far-fetched ideas that could only be hyperboles. There cannot be six inches high men, or dogs carrying a man in his mouth and classical figures making their presence felt in this age, or even in the 17 th century.
  • Imagery : Gulliver’s Travels shows the use of imagery as given below, i. I likewise felt several slender Ligatures across my Body, from my Armpits to my Thighs. I could only look upwards; the Sun began to grow hot, and the Light offended mine Eyes. I heard a confused Noise about me, but in the Posture I lay, could see nothing except the Sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left Leg, which advancing gently forward over my Breast, came almost up to my Chin; when bending mine Eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human Creature not six Inches high. (Chapter-1) ii. Their Heads were all reclined either to the Right or the Left; one of their Eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the Zenith. Their outward Garments were adorned with the Figures of Suns, Moons, and Stars, interwoven with those of Fiddles, Flutes, Harps, Trumpets, Guittars, Harpsichords, and many more Instruments of Musick, unknown to us in Europe . (Chapter-2) These two examples show images of size, color, sound, and shapes.
  • Metaphor : Gulliver’s Travels shows excellent use of various metaphors as given in the below examples, i. Answers I have with much Pains wringed and extorted from you; I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth. (Part-2, Chapter-6) ii. The King was struck with Horror at the Description I had given of those terrible Engines, and the Proposal I had made. He was amazed how so impotent and groveling an Insect as I (these were his Expressions) could entertain such inhuman Ideas, and in so familiar a Manner as to appear wholly unmoved at all the Scenes of Blood and Desolation. (Part-2, Chapter-7) iii. But my Wife protested I should never go to Sea any more; although my evil Destiny so ordered, that she had not Power to hinder me; as the Reader may know hereafter. In the mean Time , I here conclude the second Part of my unfortunate Voyages. (Part-2, Chapter-8) These examples show that several things have been compared directly in the text such as the first shows the king comparing the English people to vermins, the second shows Gulliver comparing himself to an insect and the last one shows him comparing his destiny to a devil.
  • Mood : The book shows various moods. It starts with a jolly mood of a traveler but becomes unconvincing when it enters the second part of the travel to Lilliput and becomes highly satiric and ironic when it ends after different travels.
  • Motif : Most important motifs of the text are foreign languages, travels, excrements, and islands.
  • Narrator : Gulliver’s Travels is narrated from the first person point of view , who happens to be Gulliver.
  • Personification : The book shows examples of personifications such as, i. The Emperor, and all his Court, came out to meet us; but his great Officers would by no means suffer his Majesty to endanger his Person by mounting on my Body. (Chapter-1) ii. The Ship came within half a League of this Creek, and sent out her Long-Boat with Vessels to take in fresh Water (for the Place it seems was very well known) but I did not observe it until the Boat was almost on Shore; and it was too late to seek another Hiding-Place. (Chapter-11) These examples show as if the court and the ship have emotions and lives of their own.
  • Protagonist : Gulliver is the protagonist of the text. The travelogue starts with his entry into the world of voyages and moves forward as he goes from one land to the other.
  • Satire : The travels of Gulliver show the use of satire on religion, political ideas, living style, and above all the whole Western culture during the early 18 th
  • Setting : The setting of the text is some islands and lands that Gulliver visits during his different voyages.
  • Simile : The book shows good use of various similes such as, i. They climbed up into the Engine, and advancing very softly to my Face, one of them, an Officer in the Guards, put the sharp End of his HalfPike a good way up into my left Nostril, which tickled my Nose like a Straw, and made me sneeze violently: (Chapter-1) ii. I viewed the Town on my left Hand, which looked like the painted Scene of a City in a Theatre. (Chapter-2) iii. He put this Engine to our Ears, which made an incessant Noise like that of a Water-Mill. (Chapter-2) These are similes as the use of the word “like” shows the comparison between different things. Whereas the first example shows the comparison like the tickling of the nose with some straw, the town like a scenic picture and noise like that of a water-mill.

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  • Jonathan Swift
  • A Modest Proposal

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Gulliver’s Travels – Book vs. TV series Showdown

Isabella Morgan

Gulliver’s Travels is a classic novel written by Jonathan Swift in 1726. The story follows Lemuel Gulliver, a ship surgeon who finds himself in extraordinary and fantastical situations during his voyages. It is a satirical work that explores various aspects of human nature and society. The novel has captured the imagination of readers for centuries and has been adapted into various forms of media, including a TV series. In this article, we will delve into the world of Gulliver’s Travels, providing a comprehensive book summary and insights into the TV series adaptation.

Book Summary of Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is divided into four parts, each detailing Gulliver’s adventures in different lands. In the first part, Gulliver finds himself in the land of Lilliput, inhabited by tiny people. He becomes a giant among them and helps the Lilliputians in their conflicts and political intrigues. The second part takes Gulliver to Brobdingnag, a land of giants, where he experiences the opposite perspective of being small and vulnerable. In the third part, Gulliver visits Laputa, a floating island inhabited by intellectuals who are detached from the practicalities of life. Lastly, in the fourth part, Gulliver encounters the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses who are masters of reason and virtue. This section reflects Swift’s criticism of human society and the flaws he perceives in it.

Overview of the TV Series Adaptation

The TV series adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels captures the essence of the novel while adding its own visual interpretation. The series brings to life the various lands that Gulliver visits, showcasing the imaginative settings and unique characters. The adaptation stays true to the satirical nature of the novel, highlighting the social commentary embedded within the story. Through captivating visuals and compelling performances, the TV series adaptation provides an engaging viewing experience for both fans of the novel and newcomers to the story.

Where and When Does Gulliver’s Travels Take Place? Setting Timeline

Gulliver’s Travels takes place in different parts of the world and spans several years. The novel begins in 1699 when Gulliver embarks on his first voyage. His travels take him to the fictional lands of Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the land of the Houyhnhnms. Each land represents a different aspect of society, allowing Swift to comment on various social and political issues of his time. The setting timeline of Gulliver’s Travels provides a rich backdrop for the adventures and satirical elements of the story.

Who’s Who in Gulliver’s Travels: Main Characters and Their Roles

Gulliver’s Travels introduces a diverse cast of characters throughout its four parts. Lemuel Gulliver is the protagonist and serves as the narrator of the story. He is a curious and adaptable character who experiences a wide range of emotions and challenges in each of his encounters. Other notable characters include the Lilliputians, the Brobdingnagians, the Laputians, and the Houyhnhnms. Each group of characters represents different societies and allows Swift to explore different aspects of humanity and its flaws.

Notable Guest Stars in the TV Series Adaptation

The TV series adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels features a talented cast of actors who bring the characters to life. Notable guest stars include renowned actors such as John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, and Ted Danson. Their performances add depth and nuance to the story, enhancing the viewing experience and capturing the essence of Swift’s satirical commentary.

Memorable Quotes from Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is filled with memorable quotes that highlight the wit and satire present in Swift’s writing. Here are a few notable quotes from the novel:

  • “I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” – Gulliver’s observations on the Lilliputians.
  • “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.” – Gulliver’s reflection on human nature.
  • “I should be sorry to see my countrymen do anything that might prejudice the public interest.” – Gulliver’s loyalty to his homeland.

These quotes showcase the sharp social commentary and thought-provoking nature of Gulliver’s Travels.

Soundtrack by Trevor Jones in Gulliver’s Travels

The TV series adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels features a captivating soundtrack composed by Trevor Jones. The music enhances the storytelling, creating an immersive experience for the viewers. Jones’s score captures the adventurous spirit of Gulliver’s journey and the emotional depth of the characters. From whimsical melodies to intense orchestral compositions, the soundtrack adds another layer of richness to the adaptation.

Tips for Cosplay and Dressing like the Characters in Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels offers a plethora of unique and visually striking characters that can inspire cosplay and costume designs. If you’re interested in dressing like the characters from the novel or TV series adaptation, here are a few tips:

  • Lilliputians: Create miniature costumes with intricate details, emphasizing the small scale. Use bright colors and elaborate headpieces to capture the whimsy of the characters.
  • Brobdingnagians: Design oversized costumes to represent the giants. Use earthy tones and textures to convey their natural and rustic lifestyle.
  • Laputians: Opt for futuristic and eccentric outfits, incorporating metallic elements and geometric shapes. Emphasize accessories like goggles and mechanical gadgets.
  • Houyhnhnms: Dress in white and incorporate horse-inspired elements such as horseshoes or a flowing mane. Aim for an elegant and ethereal appearance.

By taking inspiration from the novel and TV series adaptation, you can create unique and visually stunning costumes that pay homage to the world of Gulliver’s Travels.

Jonathan Swift: Biography and 5 Best Works

Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, was an Irish writer and satirist born in 1667. He is renowned for his sharp wit, political commentary, and unique writing style. Here are five of his best works:

  • “A Modest Proposal” – A satirical essay suggesting a solution to poverty in Ireland .
  • “The Battle of the Books” – A satirical work that humorously discusses the merits of ancient and modern literature.
  • “A Tale of a Tub” – A religious satire criticizing religious factions and their interpretation of scripture.
  • “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” – A poem written by Swift himself, reflecting on his own mortality and legacy.
  • “The Lady’s Dressing Room” – A poetic satire that humorously explores the private life of a woman through the contents of her dressing room.

These works showcase Swift’s mastery of satire and his ability to tackle a wide range of subjects with humor and wit.

Charles Sturridge: List and Description of 5 Other Media by the Director

Charles Sturridge, the director of the TV series adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels, is a talented filmmaker known for his compelling storytelling and attention to detail. Here are five other media projects directed by Charles Sturridge:

  • “Brideshead Revisited” (1981) – A critically acclaimed miniseries adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, exploring themes of class, religion, and love.
  • “Longitude” (2000) – A TV film based on Dava Sobel’s book, telling the true story of John Harrison’s quest to create a reliable maritime clock.
  • “Lassie” (1994) – A heartwarming family film about the bond between a boy and his loyal dog.
  • “A Handful of Dust” (1988) – A drama film based on Evelyn Waugh’s novel, depicting the disintegration of a marriage in 1930s England .
  • “The Road to Coronation Street” (2010) – A TV film that explores the creation and early years of the popular British soap opera, “Coronation Street.”

These projects demonstrate Sturridge’s versatility as a director and his ability to bring compelling stories to life on screen.

10 Similar Movies and Books to Gulliver’s Travels

If you enjoyed Gulliver’s Travels, here are ten similar movies and books that will captivate your imagination:

  • “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe – A classic novel about a castaway’s survival on a deserted island.
  • “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll – A whimsical tale of a young girl’s adventures in a fantastical world.
  • “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis – A series of fantasy novels that transport readers to a magical realm.
  • “The Odyssey” by Homer – An epic poem that follows the Greek hero Odysseus on his journey home after the Trojan War.
  • “Jurassic Park” by Michael Crichton – A thrilling novel about a theme park filled with genetically engineered dinosaurs.
  • “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien – A fantasy novel that chronicles the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and his quest for treasure.
  • “Watership Down” by Richard Adams – A novel about a group of rabbits on a perilous journey to find a new home.
  • “The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum – A beloved children’s book that transports readers to the magical land of Oz.
  • “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson – A classic adventure novel about pirates and buried treasure.
  • “Around the World in Eighty Days” by Jules Verne – A thrilling tale of a man’s attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a set amount of time.

These movies and books share elements of adventure, imagination, and exploration, making them perfect companions to Gulliver’s Travels.

Book Club Questions for Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is an excellent choice for book clubs, as it provides ample material for discussion and exploration. Here are a few book club questions to spark engaging conversations:

  • What do you think Jonathan Swift is trying to convey through the various lands and characters in Gulliver’s Travels?
  • How does Gulliver’s perspective change throughout his voyages? What insights does he gain about human nature?
  • Discuss the satirical elements present in the novel. How does Swift use humor to criticize society?
  • How does Gulliver’s relationship with the different societies he encounters reflect the broader themes of the novel?
  • In what ways does Gulliver’s Travels continue to be relevant in today’s society?

These questions will encourage book club members to delve deeper into the themes and messages of Gulliver’s Travels, fostering thought-provoking discussions.

Setting Locations and Travel Guide to Visit Related to Gulliver’s Travels

If you’re a fan of Gulliver’s Travels and want to explore locations related to the novel, here are a few places to consider:

  • Dublin , Ireland: Visit the birthplace of Jonathan Swift and explore the city that influenced his writing.
  • Blenheim Palace, England: This grand estate served as inspiration for the fictional palace of the Brobdingnagian king in Gulliver’s Travels.
  • Lilliput Lane, United Kingdom : A collection of miniature cottages and buildings inspired by the Lilliputians of Gulliver’s Travels.
  • Edinburgh, Scotland : Swift visited Edinburgh during his travels and drew inspiration from the city’s rich history and culture.

By visiting these locations, you can immerse yourself in the world of Gulliver’s Travels and gain a deeper appreciation for the novel.

Parent Guide for Watching Gulliver’s Travels with Children

Gulliver’s Travels can be enjoyed by people of all ages, including children. However, it’s important to provide guidance and context when watching the TV series adaptation with younger viewers. Here are a few tips for parents:

  • Discuss the themes and messages of the story with your children to help them understand the social commentary and satire present in the adaptation.
  • Emphasize the importance of empathy and understanding towards different cultures and perspectives, as the story explores these themes in various ways.
  • Encourage critical thinking by asking questions about the characters’ actions, motivations, and the consequences of their choices.
  • Use Gulliver’s Travels as a starting point for further discussions on literature, history, and the power of storytelling.

By engaging with your children and providing guidance, you can make watching Gulliver’s Travels a meaningful and educational experience.

Intriguing Curiosities and Tidbits about Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is a rich and complex work that has fascinated readers for centuries. Here are a few intriguing curiosities and tidbits about the novel:

  • The term “Lilliputian” has entered the English language as a synonym for “small” or “petty” due to the popularity of Gulliver’s Travels.
  • The novel was initially published under the pseudonym “Lemuel Gulliver” to create the illusion of authenticity and to further enhance the satirical elements.
  • Gulliver’s Travels has been adapted into multiple films, TV series, and even an opera, showcasing its enduring popularity and cultural significance.
  • The novel was initially met with mixed reviews, with some readers misunderstanding the satirical nature of the work. However, it has since become recognized as a literary masterpiece.

These curiosities and tidbits shed light on the cultural impact and enduring legacy of Gulliver’s Travels.

Gulliver’s Travels is a timeless masterpiece that continues to captivate readers and viewers with its imaginative storytelling and biting social commentary. The novel provides a thought-provoking exploration of human nature and society, while the TV series adaptation brings the story to life with its visual interpretation.

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10 Great Fantasy Books That Became Terrible Movies

  • Great fantasy books often struggle to translate into successful movies due to the collaborative nature of filmmaking and the challenges of visualizing the reader's imagination.
  • Many of the worst book-to-movie adaptations are in the fantasy genre, which is further complicated by the need for visual interpretation and mainstream appeal.
  • Poor adaptations like "Alice in Wonderland," "Eragon," and "The Dark Tower" often rely too heavily on CGI, lack faithfulness to the source material, and fail to capture the essence of the original stories.

Great fantasy books that became terrible movies reveal the inherent strengths and weaknesses of both mediums. These films serve as a warning to audiences and filmmakers alike: turning any great piece of literary fantasy into a full feature film is never an easy task. Even when beloved fantasy books, novellas, short stories, or comics are seemingly paired with the perfect filmmaker to tackle the material, a lot of things can still go wrong. After all, while writing literature is typically a solitary endeavor, filmmaking is deeply collaborative, the limitations of which can sometimes offset the advantages of movies over the written word.

Unfortunately, many of the worst book-to-movie adaptations are in the genre of fantasy, which isn't surprising. The difficulties of adapting written stories to film are further exacerbated by the very things that make fantasy books worth adapting. Indeed, fantasy books typically leave all visualization to the reader's imagination - a logistical nightmare when various creatives and studio executives working on the same adaptation have different interpretations in mind. In their efforts to improve the story or make it fit for mainstream consumption, filmmakers also sometimes stray heavily from the source material. For viewers curious about which adaptations to avoid, here are 10 great fantasy books that became terrible movies.

Related: 10 Books Being Adapted Into Upcoming Movies & TV Shows

Alice In Wonderland (2010)

On paper, author Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and the darkly whimsical style of director Tim Burton are a match made in heaven. In fact, Alice in Wonderland made over $1 billion at the box office. However, while Burton's grim, gray, and post-apocalyptic Underland is a promising interpretation of Carroll's color-saturated world, Alice in Wonderland ultimately misses the mark. A common mistake among great fantasy books that became terrible movies, Alice in Wonderland relied too much on CGI, lacking the lived-in charm of Burton's previous films. Burton's dark sequel to the original story was a valiant attempt at reinventing a classic, but for many, it looked and felt lifeless.

The Giver (2014)

In the bleak future of Lois Lowry's The Giver, society has abolished strife and preserves order through Sameness - the erasure of all emotion. Only the Receiver of Memory remembers emotions and history before Sameness - a role that the young boy Jonas prepares to receive in The Giver, which was awarded the Newbery Medal for children's literature. A terrible novel adaptation that should have been good , The Giver movie instead eschewed the source material's philosophical inquiries just to jump on the young adult dystopian blockbuster wagon. That said, the inclusion of actors like Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges at least saved The Giver from being a flop.

Eragon (2006)

Christopher Paolini began writing Eragon, the first book in The Inheritance Cycle, when he was just 15 years old. With its story of a farm boy learning to embrace his destiny as a Dragon Rider, Eragon is possibly the best Star Wars- inspired young adult fantasy novel, with the succeeding books in The Inheritance Cycle providing tons of space for a movie franchise to bloom. Unfortunately, there are but two things worth watching in the Eragon film adaptation: Jeremy Irons' veteran Dragon Rider Brom, and the movie's stunning visuals. Between the rest of the cast's mediocre acting to the many changes from the book, Eragon became a generic fantasy B-movie.

Related: Disney's Eragon Reboot Can Only Fix The 2000s' Most Frustrating Fantasy Flop On 1 Condition

Gulliver's Travels (2010)

The 18th-century novel by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, was a proto-science fiction satire of developing societies that was way ahead of its time. It questioned the very advances that have led to the concept of the nation - through a fantastical adventure setting that made its heavy sociopolitical undertones palatable to adults and children alike. Meanwhile, the movie adaptation of Gulliver's Travels is a mildly funny adventure fantasy film. In yet another case of excessive CGI towering over plot and character development, Gulliver's Travels didn't even really try to capture what made the source material so iconic, and instead relied on computer-generated mayhem and archetypal characters.

The Dark Tower (2017)

Many terrible movies inspired by great fantasy books are the results of filmmakers giving little thought to the source material. In contrast, the reason why The Dark Tower movie failed is that it took inspiration not just from the eponymous novel, but from every book in author Stephen King's repertoire. The result is a surprisingly quick film that catastrophically fails to leverage the rich world, plot, and characters of King's sprawling Western sci-fi epic. Even casting Idris Elba in the lead role of Roland Deschain couldn't distract from the adaptation's incomprehensible narrative. Hopefully, the Dark Tower series that's in the works can focus on adapting just the novel.

The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Much like he did with Watchmen, author Alan Moore envisioned the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a transgressive and groundbreaking superhero story. This is why Moore assembled Victorian-era literary figures and interpreted their dark origin stories with gritty and modern realism. However, like many great fantasy books that became terrible movies, the film adaptation oversimplified the original author's visionary ideas. The visuals are great, but the movie essentially reduced the premise into typical superhero fare - the complete opposite of Moore's intent. While renowned actors Sean Connery and Naseeruddin Shah are perfectly cast respectively as Alan Quatermain and Nemo, LXG doesn't have much else to offer.

Related: Everything We Know About Disney's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones (2013)

The first book in author Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments series, City of Bones is an ambitious urban fantasy teen drama focused on a secret supernatural war - fought between Shadowhunters and demons menacing the mortal world. While Clare's novels have been criticized for being predictable, they were unique enough to stand out from other young adult fantasy book series. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. While the story of City of Bones could have become a franchise, the blatantly derivative execution made the film look just like another Hollywood teen fantasy romance, which ultimately didn't garner enough interest to continue.

The Hobbit Trilogy (2012-2014)

Similar to many great fantasy books that became terrible movies, the reason why The Hobbit trilogy failed is that it essentially turned a single book into a film trilogy. While Peter Jackson made a movie from each of the three volumes in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - resulting in the greatest movie trilogy in classic western fantasy - the director practically took the exact opposite approach in The Hobbit. Although The Hobbit movies collectively made nearly $3 billion at the box office, their meandering plot and sheer disrespect for the source material have resulted in arguably the worst-ever adaptation of Tolkien's foundational work.

The Cat In The Hat (2003)

One of the most famous books by author Theodor Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat was designed to be a better version of the traditional primers used for teaching children how to read. The Cat in the Hat has garnered a reputation for being one of the best educational children's picture books of all time, which is why it was a strange decision to turn it into a feature-length comedy sprinkled with dirty humor. As with most Hollywood adaptations of Seuss' books, the set design is fantastic. However, apart from its unnecessary sub-plots, the movie also features arguably the worst performance of Mike Myers' career.

Related: Every Dr. Seuss Movie Ranked

Inkheart (2008)

Cornelia Funke's Inkheart is about Mo, a man who has the power to pull fiction into reality by reading aloud from books. The trouble begins when Mo gives life to a villain in the book Inkheart, which eventually puts the real world in danger. As is the case with many great fantasy books that became terrible movies, the problem with the screen adaptation of Inkheart lies with the sprawling story being unjustly compressed to fit the length of a feature film. Following Funke's wishes, Brendan Fraser was perfectly cast as Mo. However, not even the performances of actors like Fraser, Paul Bettany, Andy Serkis, and Helen Mirren could save Inkheart.

10 Great Fantasy Books That Became Terrible Movies

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  1. Gulliver's Travels

    Gulliver's Travels, four-part satirical work by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift, published anonymously in 1726 as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.A keystone of English literature, it is one of the books that contributed to the emergence of the novel as a literary form in English. A parody of the then popular travel narrative, Gulliver's Travels combines adventure with ...

  2. Gulliver's Travels

    Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World.In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, satirising both human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre.It is Swift's best-known full-length work and a classic of English literature.

  3. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

    A wickedly clever satire uses comic inversions to offer telling insights into the nature of man and society. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Gulliver's Travels describes the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon. In Lilliput he discovers a world in miniature; towering over the ...

  4. A Summary and Analysis of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels

    By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Gulliver's Travels, first published in 1726 and written by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), has been called one of the first novels in English, one of the greatest satires in all of literature, and even a children's classic (though any edition for younger readers is usually quite heavily abridged).

  5. Gulliver's Travels: Full Book Summary

    Gulliver's Travels Full Book Summary. Gulliver's Travels recounts the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a practical-minded Englishman trained as a surgeon who takes to the seas when his business fails. In a deadpan first-person narrative that rarely shows any signs of self-reflection or deep emotional response, Gulliver narrates the adventures that ...

  6. Gulliver's Travels: Study Guide

    The novel recounts the fantastic voyages of Lemuel Gulliver to various imaginary lands. Gulliver's Travels is structured as a series of four parts, each describing Gulliver's adventures in different places. The first two parts depict Gulliver's encounters with tiny Lilliputians and giant Brobdingnagians, serving as a commentary on human ...

  7. Gulliver's Travels Study Guide

    Gulliver's Travels satirizes the form of the travel narrative, a popular literary genre that started with Richard Hakluyt's Voyages in 1589 and experienced immense popularity in eighteenth-century England through best-selling diaries and first-person accounts by explorers such as Captain James Cook. At the time, people were eager to hear about cultures and people in the faraway lands where ...

  8. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift Plot Summary

    Gulliver's Travels Summary. Lemuel Gulliver is a married English surgeon who wants to see the world. He takes a job on a ship and ends up shipwrecked in the land of Lilliput where he is captured by the miniscule Lilliputians and brought to the Lilliputian king. The Lilliputians are astonished by Gulliver's size but treat him gently, providing ...

  9. Gulliver's Travels: Full Book Analysis

    Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a celebrated satirical work in which Swift adopts the techniques of a standard travelogue to critique his own culture and its assumptions. The novel exaggerates the absurdity of the people and places the narrator describes, and in so doing mocks society. The novel's first-person narrator, Lemuel Gulliver, is straightforward, bereft of inner emotion ...

  10. Gulliver's Travels

    Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre.It is widely considered Swift's magnum opus (masterpiece) and is his most celebrated work, as well as one of the indisputable classics of English literature.

  11. Gulliver's Travels

    Collector's Library, 2004 - Fiction - 381 pages. Jonathan Swift's masterpiece is the finest satire in the English language. Shipwrecked traveler Lemuel Gulliver finds himself washed ashore in Lilliput, a kingdom populated by tiny people. Fascinated by their exotic visitor, the Lilliputians enlist Gulliver's services in their bitter civil war.

  12. Book Summary

    Book Summary. Gulliver's Travels is an adventure story (in reality, a misadventure story) involving several voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon, who, because of a series of mishaps en route to recognized ports, ends up, instead, on several unknown islands living with people and animals of unusual sizes, behaviors, and philosophies, but ...

  13. Gulliver's Travels

    A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON. Written in the Year 1727.. I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct the style, as my ...

  14. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

    A Tale of a Tub (1704); A Modest Proposal, an essay (1729); Verses on the Death of Dr Swift (1739) Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels comes third in our list of the best novels written in ...

  15. Gulliver's Travels

    A fantastical tale, Gulliver's Travels tells the story of the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, an English ship's surgeon. First, he is shipwrecked in the land of Lilliput, where the alarmed residents are only six inches tall. His second voyage takes him to the land of Brobdingnag, where the people are sixty feet tall.

  16. Gulliver's Travels Full Text and Analysis

    Gulliver's Travels. Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels delivers an intricate, biting critique of 18th-century Europe and humanity in general. First published in England in 1726, the novel satirizes the travel narrative, a popular genre in the literature of the Augustan period. The story details the adventures of the intelligent and ...

  17. Gulliver's Travels: Key Facts

    Full Title Gulliver's Travels, or, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver . Author Jonathan Swift. Type of work Novel. Genre Satire. Language English. Time and place written Approximately 1712-1726, London and Dublin. Date of first publication 1726 (1735 unabridged). Publisher George Faulkner (unabridged 1735 edition)

  18. Gulliver's Travels Themes

    Above all, Gulliver's Travels is a novel about perspective. While the story is abundant with potential morals, the strongest and most consistent message is a lesson in relativism: one's point of view is contingent upon one's own physical and social circumstances and looking at people's circumstances explains a lot about their respective viewpoints.

  19. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

    Gulliver's Travels Credits: Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net: Language: English: LoC Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature: Subject: Fantasy fiction Subject: Satire Subject: Travelers -- Fiction Subject: Gulliver, Lemuel (Fictitious character) -- Fiction Subject

  20. Gulliver's Travels

    Introduction to Gulliver's Travels. A very popular satire as well as one of the favorite children's books, Gulliver's Travels, is widely taught in schools and colleges as a syllabus book across the globe. Gulliver's Travels was written by Jonathan Swift, an Irish author.This satirical travelogue was first published in 1726 and hit the headlines at that time for its biting satire and ...

  21. Gulliver's Travels (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

    Gulliver's Travels: my first book ever on the Kindle(tm). Well, first about the mechanics of it all. I know, based on some reviews I have read, some versions of stories are poorly formatted or the font is bad or unadjustable or what have you--thankfully none of those issues was present here. It was a joy to be able to glide through the pages ...

  22. Gulliver's Travels: Book vs. TV Series

    Gulliver's Travels is a classic novel written by Jonathan Swift in 1726. The story follows Lemuel Gulliver, a ship surgeon who finds himself in extraordinary and fantastical situations during his voyages. It is a satirical work that explores various aspects of human nature and society. The novel has captured the imagination of readers for ...

  23. 10 Great Fantasy Books That Became Terrible Movies

    Gulliver's Travels (2010) The 18th-century novel by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, was a proto-science fiction satire of developing societies that was way ahead of its time.