Jonathan Swift and the satirical novel

​​In a nutshell

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish author known for his masterpiece Gulliver's Travels and for being one of the first satirist writers.

The Author's Life

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin in 1667 under the wing of an English family. In 1688, he went to live in England, where he started to work for a scholar and Whig statesman called Sir William Temple, who encouraged him to produce his first satirical works. In 1694, he returned to Ireland and became an Anglican priest. During the next years, he lived in London and wrote for the Tory administration.

In 1713, he became Dean of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, where he remained for the next thirty years. Unfortunately, Swift's last years were characterized by the decay of his faculties due to labyrinthine vertigo, and deafness. He died in Dublin in 1745. Some of his most famous works were Gulliver's Travels (1726), A Modest Proposal (1729), and A Tale of a Tub (1704).

Main Topics

Swift wrote about topics such as adventure, religious misunderstandings, oppression of Ireland, poverty, and society. Though, the most representative elements of his novels were satire and irony.

CONTROVERSIAL SEAL 

Swift is considered one of the most controversial authors due to the impossibility of labeling his perspective of the world. He has been categorized as a monster, a misanthrope, or a lover of humanity. Politics and society are two aspects reflected in his work, in addition to his conservative attitude. This author generally achieved successfully the effect of parody and irony in every single one of his novels.

Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels was published in London in 1726. It is composed of four books, each dealing with the several adventures of the ship's surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver, and depicted with the maps of the places he visited. 

THE PLOT

In book one, Gulliver starts a trip to Bristol. Six months later he is shipwrecked somewhere in the South Pacific. He cast upon the shore of 'Lilliput', whose habitants, 'Lilliputians', are six inches tall. After many fun experiences, he manages to go back to England.

In book two, Gulliver sails for India, but somehow arrives in 'Brobdingnag', a country Swift located in Alaska. Here the natives are giants twelve times as tall as Gulliver. His height causes him many unfortunate events, he even becomes the King's pet, locked in a cage. One day, a huge bird lifted Gulliver's cage and dropped it in the ocean. Later, he is rescued by a ship and returns to England.

In book three, pirates attack Gulliver's ship by setting him adrift on a small boat. He then finds himself on the flying island of 'Laputa', whose inhabitants are absent-minded astronomers, scientists, and philosophers who carry out ridiculous experiments. The island drops Gulliver in Japan and he handles to return to England.

In book four, Gulliver's last trip takes him to the island of the 'Houyhnhnms', rational horses that rule over the 'Yahoos', a kind of animal that resembles human beings. When the horses exclude him, he builds a canoe and leaves for England. Once he is back to civilization, he reunites his wife and children, however, he cannot stand their human smell. Therefore, he goes to live in a stable with the animals that remind him of the Houyhnhnms.

SOURCES

There are many features of the 17th century that reflect Swift's work. Several contexts in the novel make allusions to politics, events in England during the reigns of Anne I and George I, as well as references to the Royal Society.

LEMUEL GULLIVER

Gulliver is a middle-aged man with good education and values. He takes care of his family and runs his business wisely. The Gulliver that is described at the beginning of the book is not the same as the one at the end of the novel. There is a change in him after all his trips, this occurs because the people he meets in all his adventures lived in organized societies governed by institutions. If in the end, he is discontent with everything at home, it is because Europe is slowly losing its civilization and becoming corrupted which is expressed in the novel between rationality and animality.

Swift particularity lies in the creation of a series of experiences that later are going to be contrasted with those which preceded it. Gulliver always finds himself displaced, he is either too small or too tall or not an animal but a man. Since Gulliver tells the experiences in first person, the reader can appreciate the descriptions with detail and precision.

Gulliver's Travels can be very flexible. It has been read as a tale for kids due to the amount of fun and absurd situations. Also, it can be interpreted as a political allegory from Swift's time, as a parody of voyage literature, or as a masterpiece of misanthropy and a reflection on the peculiarities of human reason.