Work record

Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift

1726 · 18th Century · Satire · English

Public domainhigh medical relevanceRead full text Five-minute digest

Portrait of Jonathan Swift. Source · Public domain

Summary

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver, presents itself as the sober memoir of a ship's surgeon. In Part I, shipwrecked, Gulliver wakes on the shore of Lilliput tied down by people six inches tall. He wins their trust, is given his freedom, and helps them against the neighbouring empire of Blefuscu by towing away its fleet. The Lilliputians' politics are petty versions of Britain's: ministers win office by rope-dancing, parties divide over high and low heels, and the war with Blefuscu began over which end of an egg to break. After Gulliver extinguishes a palace fire by urinating on it and refuses to enslave Blefuscu, he is impeached and sentenced to blinding, and escapes. In Part II he is abandoned in Brobdingnag, a land of giants, where he is exhibited by a farmer, bought by the queen and cared for by the farmer's daughter Glumdalclitch. Now tiny, he finds human bodies grotesque at close range, and when he proudly describes English government, law and gunpowder to the wise king, the king concludes that most of his people are odious vermin. An eagle carries him off in his travelling box. In Part III Gulliver visits the flying island of Laputa, whose mathematicians and astronomers are so abstracted that servants must flap them with bladders to make them attend, and the land below it, Balnibarbi, ruined by the projects of the Academy of Lagado, where scientists try to extract sunbeams from cucumbers and turn excrement back into food. He visits Glubbdubdrib, where he summons the ghosts of famous men, and Luggnagg, where he meets the Struldbrugs, who are immortal but not eternally young, and who decline into miserable, forgetful old age. In Part IV he is marooned in the land of the Houyhnhnms, rational and virtuous horses who govern themselves by reason and keep as beasts the filthy, savage, human-like Yahoos. Gulliver learns their language, describes Europe to his master, and comes to see humans as Yahoos with a little reason. Expelled by the Houyhnhnms' assembly, he returns home unable to bear his family's smell, buys horses and talks to them daily in the stable.

Plot or Argument

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput
Gulliver among tiny people whose politics, religion and wars satirise English and European affairs; his impeachment and escape.
Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag
Gulliver among giants; the human body magnified; his account of Europe and the king's verdict.
Part III: Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan
Satire of abstract science and projectors in Laputa and Lagado, the ghosts of history, and the immortal Struldbrugs.
Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms
Rational horses and bestial Yahoos; Gulliver's conversion to misanthropy and his return to England.

Characters

Lemuel Gulliver, narrator
Ship's surgeon and credulous traveller whose perspective shifts with each voyage.
Glumdalclitch, Gulliver's nurse in Brobdingnag
Farmer's daughter who cares tenderly for the tiny Gulliver.
The King of Brobdingnag, monarch
Wise giant king who condemns European politics.
The Emperor of Lilliput, monarch
Vain ruler of the tiny people who turns against Gulliver.
Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master, host in Part IV
Rational horse who questions Gulliver about human nature.
Lord Munodi, Balnibarbian nobleman
Sensible landowner whose traditional estate thrives amid the ruin of projectors.
Don Pedro de Mendez, Portuguese captain
Kind captain who rescues Gulliver and whom Gulliver can barely tolerate.

Lessons

Perspective changes everything
By making Gulliver giant and then tiny, Swift shows how scale changes what seems grand or disgusting. The book trains readers to see their own customs from outside.
- Which of Lilliput's absurdities have modern equivalents?
- What does Brobdingnag reveal about the human body?
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Reason without humanity
The Laputans and the Houyhnhnms both prize reason, with very different results. Swift satirises both useless abstraction and the dream of pure rationality.
- Are the Houyhnhnms admirable or chilling?
- Is Gulliver sane at the end?
- What does the Academy of Lagado say about research culture?
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Long life is not the same as good life
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- Why does Gulliver's enthusiasm for immortality turn to horror?
- What would Swift make of modern longevity research?
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Context

Gulliver's Travels satirises Whig politics under George I and Walpole, the quarrels of High and Low Church, wars with France, the Royal Society's experimental science, financial speculation after the South Sea Bubble, and the popular genre of travel narratives such as Dampier's voyages.

Composition

Swift worked on it from about 1721 and published it anonymously in October 1726 through Benjamin Motte, who altered politically dangerous passages. George Faulkner's Dublin edition of 1735 restored many of Swift's intended readings and is often used as the basis of modern texts.

Reception

It was an immediate success; Gay and Pope wrote that it was read from the cabinet council to the nursery. Its scatology and misanthropy later shocked Victorian critics. Its words 'Lilliputian' and 'Yahoo' entered the language, and it has been adapted countless times, often as children's entertainment.

Satire Folly Travel Journey Power / Politics Science / Knowledge Utopia / Dystopia Isolation / Alienation Animals Illness / Body

Comparisons

candide
Both are philosophical satires in the form of travel, with a naïve hero, a utopia (Houyhnhnmland, El Dorado) and an ambiguous ending.
persian-letters
Both use the device of an outsider's perspective to defamiliarise European customs.
black-beauty
Swift's rational horses judge humans; Sewell's horse narrates human cruelty from below. Both make horses the moral observers of men.
we
Laputa and the Houyhnhnms anticipate Zamyatin's dystopia of reason and its suppression of feeling.
the-narrative-of-arthur-gordon-pym-of-nantucket
Poe exploits the same tradition of the fabricated voyage narrative that Swift parodies.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together”

"whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together" — Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part II, Ch. 7 (1735 Faulkner text).

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Frequently cited

“He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers”

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers" — Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part III, Ch. 5 (1735 Faulkner text).

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For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The sober, detailed voice of Gulliver himself, a ship's surgeon who reports measurements, dates, and customs as if writing for the Royal Society. Notice when his calm reporting makes something absurd or cruel seem ordinary.
Lilliputian politics in Part I: ministers chosen by rope-dancing, parties divided by high and low heels, and a long war over which end of an egg to break. Then watch how quickly the court turns on Gulliver after he puts out the palace fire and refuses to enslave Blefuscu.
Gulliver's proud account of England to the King of Brobdingnag in Part II, Ch. 6, the king's verdict, and Gulliver's offer in Ch. 7 to teach him the secret of gunpowder. The scale has reversed, and so has the judgment.
The Academy of Lagado in Part III, Ch. 5, with projectors extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, set against Lord Munodi's estate, which flourishes because he farms in the old way. Then the Struldbrugs of Luggnagg in Ch. 10, who cannot die and cannot stop growing old.
The Houyhnhnms and Yahoos of Part IV, Gulliver's growing contempt for his own kind, and his return home, where he cannot bear his family and spends his days talking to horses in the stable, even after the kind Portuguese captain Don Pedro has rescued him.

Key terms and names

Lilliput and Blefuscu: The rival island empires of six-inch people in Part I. Their wars and court intrigues are a miniature of the quarrels between Britain and France and between parties at the court of George I.
Big-Endians and Little-Endians: The factions who fight over which end of a boiled egg should be broken. The quarrel parodies religious and political disputes in which great bloodshed followed from disagreements that seem small to an outsider.
Brobdingnag: The land of giants in Part II, where Gulliver is the tiny one, exhibited for money and kept as a curiosity at court. Its king, who governs by common sense and practical learning, judges Europe harshly.
Glumdalclitch: The farmer's nine-year-old daughter who becomes Gulliver's nurse and protector in Brobdingnag. Her tenderness is one of the few unmixed kindnesses he receives on any voyage.
Laputa and the flappers: The flying island of Part III, whose rulers are so absorbed in mathematics and music that servants must strike them with bladders to make them speak or listen. The island can also be lowered over rebellious towns below.
Struldbrugs: The immortals of Luggnagg in Part III, Ch. 10, who never die but keep aging, losing memory, friends, and every pleasure. Gulliver's first excitement at the idea of endless life turns to horror.
Houyhnhnms: The rational horses of Part IV, who live by reason without lying, war, or passion, and have no word for a falsehood except the thing which is not. Gulliver comes to worship them.
Yahoos: The filthy, greedy, human-shaped beasts kept by the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver's horror deepens when he sees that his own body resembles theirs and that his master regards him as a Yahoo with a little reason.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Why is Gulliver first honored and then impeached in Lilliput, and what punishment do the emperor's ministers agree on?
Comprehension What does Gulliver offer the King of Brobdingnag in Part II, Ch. 7, and how does the king respond?
Comprehension Who are the Struldbrugs, what does Gulliver imagine he would do if he were one, and what does he learn about their actual lives?
Interpretation Gulliver calls the king's refusal of gunpowder a sign of narrow principles and short views. Whose judgment does Swift want the reader to trust here, and how does the gap between Gulliver and the reader create the satire?
Interpretation The Academy of Lagado fails while Lord Munodi's estate flourishes. What kind of knowledge is Swift mocking in Part III, and what kind is he defending?
Interpretation The Houyhnhnms have no lying, war, or greed, but they also choose mates by reason, raise their children without special affection, and vote to expel Gulliver. Are they Swift's ideal, or does he mean us to notice what their pure reason lacks?
Big Question At the end Gulliver despises humanity and is himself, as he admits in Part IV, Ch. 12, unable to bear a creature smitten with pride. Is the right response to human folly contempt, humor, reform, or something else?

Faith Connections

Psalm 8:3-5 (Scripture)
The psalmist, looking at the heavens, asks what man is that God should be mindful of him, and answers that God has made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory. Swift's changes of scale ask the same question from below and above, and Gulliver's final contempt for mankind leaves out the crown the psalmist sees.
Proverbs 16:18 (Scripture)
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. In Part IV, Ch. 12 Gulliver says he can tolerate every human vice except a lump of deformity and diseases smitten with pride, yet his own disdain for his family shows the same pride turned against his kind.
Pascal, Pensees (Lafuma 678) (Great Conversation)
Pascal observes that man is neither angel nor beast, and that whoever tries to act the angel ends by acting the beast. Gulliver, aspiring to be a Houyhnhnm and despising the Yahoo in himself, ends in the stable talking to horses, a striking illustration of Pascal's warning.
Swift, letter to Alexander Pope, 29 September 1725 (Great Conversation)
Swift, an Anglican clergyman and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, wrote to Pope while finishing the book that he meant to show the falsity of defining man as a rational animal and to prove he is only capable of reason. The letter helps students see Part IV as an attack on human pride in reason, not on faith or on humanity as such.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Human beings pride themselves on reason, yet their politics, wars, sciences, and very bodies, when seen from another scale or through the eyes of a wiser observer, reveal pettiness, cruelty, and folly; even a society of pure reason, like the Houyhnhnms', lacks the warmth of human affection, and Gulliver's worship of it ends in a new pride; therefore man is not simply a rational animal but a creature capable of reason who must be humbled into honest self-knowledge before he can use reason well.

Rhetorical device: satiric persona (naive narrator). In Part II, Ch. 7 Gulliver proudly describes cannon and gunpowder to the King of Brobdingnag and offers to teach the secret, then blames the king's horror on his narrow education. Because Gulliver tells the story without seeing what it reveals, the reader judges both Europe and Gulliver more severely than any direct attack could.

Debate: Resolved: The Houyhnhnms represent Swift's ideal for human life.

Memory Work

whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together
Part II, Ch. 7. The King of Brobdingnag's praise of the farmer who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is one of the most quoted lines on the dignity of useful work over political ambition.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Each voyage changes Gulliver's size or standing relative to his hosts: giant, miniature, ignored visitor, and finally Yahoo. Argue how Swift uses these changes of scale and position to change what Gulliver and the reader see about human nature, and whether the four voyages build toward a single conclusion.

Comparison with The Republic: The Houyhnhnms, like Plato's guardians in the Republic, arrange marriages for the good of the race, raise children for the common good rather than out of family affection, and govern by reason. Compare the two societies and argue whether Swift is borrowing Plato's ideal, satirizing it, or testing what it would cost real human beings.

Medical Lens

Gulliver is a trained surgeon, and the book is full of the body. In Brobdingnag, magnification turns skin, breasts and a beggar woman's breast cancer into objects of disgust, an early meditation on the anatomist's eye. The Academy of Lagado includes a doctor who cures colic by pumping air into the patient with bellows, killing a dog in the attempt, and political projectors who propose purges and surgical exchanges of brains between party leaders. In Part IV Gulliver describes European physicians and their purges and vomits to his Houyhnhnm master, a satire of evacuant therapeutics grounded in humoral theory. The Struldbrugs of Luggnagg are among literature's most influential depictions of extreme old age and memory loss, cited in gerontology and in debates on life extension. Gulliver's closing alienation, preferring horses to his family, is often discussed as a portrait of misanthropic breakdown. Swift's own late cognitive decline and his bequest to found St Patrick's Hospital for the mentally ill add biographical resonance.

Physicians Doctors Quackery Charlatans Aging Senescence Dementia Memory Disability Deformity Anatomy Dissection Madness Psychosis Humoral Medicine Pharmacology Poisons Surgery

Part I, Ch. 1
Gulliver's training as a surgeon and apprenticeship under a London surgeon before going to sea.
Physicians Doctors Surgery
Part II, Ch. 1 and 4
Magnified bodies: the nurse's breast, and beggars with a breast cancer, a monstrous wen and lice.
Anatomy Dissection Disability Deformity
Part III, Ch. 5
A Lagado physician treats colic by inflating the patient with bellows.
Quackery Charlatans Physicians Doctors
Part III, Ch. 6
Political projectors propose physicians to diagnose senators and a surgical swap of half-brains between party leaders.
Surgery Quackery Charlatans Madness Psychosis
Part III, Ch. 10
The Struldbrugs: immortal, decrepit, forgetful and legally dead at eighty.
Aging Senescence Dementia Memory
Part IV, Ch. 6
Gulliver explains European physicians, purges, clysters and the habit of foretelling death to save reputation.
Physicians Doctors Humoral Medicine Pharmacology Poisons Quackery Charlatans
Part IV, Ch. 11–12
Gulliver's return home, his revulsion at his family and his daily conversations with his horses.
Madness Psychosis

Creative Prompts

Essay
Read Part IV, Ch. 6 as a satire on 18th-century therapeutics. Which of Gulliver's complaints about physicians still apply?
Fiction
Write a new chapter on the Academy of Lagado's psychopharmacology department.
Classroom
Debate: is Gulliver mad at the end of Part IV, or has he seen the truth?

Gulliver's Travels

Summary

Plot or Argument

Characters

Lessons

Perspective changes everything

Reason without humanity

Long life is not the same as good life

Context

Composition

Reception

Comparisons

Quotes

For Students

Reading Guide

Watch for

Key terms and names

Seminar Questions

Faith Connections

Logic and Rhetoric

Memory Work

Writing Prompts

Medical Lens

Creative Prompts

Further Reading