Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput

Jonathan Swift “Gulliver's Travels”.

Published in his sixtieth year, Gulliver’s Travels is the most famous example of Jonathan Swift’s satirical works and was the only one he received payment for since most of his works were vehemently and dangerously political, and were published anonymously or under one of his many pen-names. Following the success of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719, Swift was inspired to write a similarly sober document of fiction spoken as truth to make the reader reconsider the accepted state of the world. Although Swift seems to have been writing the book from 1720 onwards, it was only completed and published in 1726. Lemuel Gulliver, a ship’s surgeon, tells the story of his shipwreck on the island of Lilliput. Here people are six inches rather than six feet tall and as such their actions, debates and pageantry seem utterly ridiculous. Their fatuous political arguments mock the English political and religious debates of Swift’s time. On his ‘travels’, Gulliver meets various other strange humanoids: the extremely tall people of Brobdingnag and later the useless scientists and philosophers of Laputa and Lagado who spend their time trying to extract sunshine from cucumbers while failing to do anything worthwhile. Glubbdubdrib and Luggnagg present Gulliver with more intriguing insights still. In the final section of the book, Gulliver meets the Houyhnhnms who are horses empowered with reason, simplicity and dignity and the Yahoos who look like humans but live revolting lives of vice and brutality. Gulliver and the reader get to see the human race through a series of curved mirrors therefore and return to the real world somewhat disgusted. However, despite its dark themes, the book was an immediate success and has remained a favourite with adults who enjoy the satire and children who like the adventuring.

General Themes

One may read Gulliver's Travels as a satire and as an adventure story.

The general theme of the satire is that serious defects afflict society. Politicians, religious leaders, social planners, military tacticians, educators - indeed, all of society’s elite - often hamper progress through political machination, aggression, misguided science and art, and out-and-out stupidity.
The general theme of the adventure story is that strange and wondrous exploits await people willing to take risks. Gulliver goes to sea again and again - risking the perils of angry weather, pirates, and unfriendly cultures - to escape the familiar and experience the exotic.

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput

Part I, entitled "A Voyage to Lilliput," is the most famous section of Gulliver's Travels. Lured by the prospect of adventure and easy money, Lemuel Gulliver signs up as a "surgeon," or ship's doctor, for a voyage through the East Indies in Asia. Unfortunately for Gulliver, he is shipwrecked. He swims to an unfamiliar shore and, exhausted by his efforts, goes to sleep. When he awakes, he finds himself tied up by a crowd of extremely tiny and well-armed people. Gulliver is taken prisoner, shipped to the capital, and presented to the Emperor. A cross between court pet and circus attraction, Gulliver makes friends with many of the courtiers and learns about the history, society, politics, and economy of Lilliput. For many years, Lilliput has been at war with its sister island Blefuscu over whether to break softboiled eggs at the big or little end. This clash parodies the French-English and Catholic-Protestant conflicts of Swift's time, and many of the characters in this section correspond to actual political figures of the day.

Although he aids Lilliput by stealing the Blefuscudian navy, Gulliver is resented by many of the Emperor's courtiers. He eventually hears of a plot to accuse him of treason and sentence him to be blinded and starved to death. Frightened by this prospect, he swims over to Blefuscu and presents himself as a visitor from the Lilliputian emperor. The Blefuscudian emperor treats him well, even after a message from Lilliput demands his return. An Englishman-sized rowboat washes up on shore, however, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, Gulliver departs Blefuscu and Lilliput. He is eventually rescued by a passing English ship and returns home to England and his family.

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