Politicalcan be seen throughout
, so much so that Swift, fearing government reprisal, initially published
the book anonymously. Indeed, the entire work can be seen as aof the travel and exploration
narratives popular in the eighteenth century. Swift makes a point of skewering a number of
political figures and institutions of his day. Flimnap, the Lilliputian politician, is usually
understood to be a satire of Robert Walpole, the Whig politician associated with many of his
political opponents (including Swift) with corruption. The conflict between the High and Low
Heels in Lilliput is a pointed satire of the Whigs and Tories in eighteenth century
England:
...for above seventy moons past there have been
two struggling parties in this empire, under the names of Tramecksan and Slamecksan, from the
high and low heels of their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves. It is alleged, indeed,
that the high heels are most agreeable to our ancient constitution; but, however this be, his
Majesty hath determined to make use only of low heels in the administration of the government
and all offices in the gift of the crown...
Other
satirical elements permeate the work. The gentle Houyhnhnms are intended to be a counterpoint
not just to the Yahoos that they view as barbarians, but to England itself. Gulliver's
description of English ways of life, particularly the endemic wars of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, is met by the Houyhnhnm king with horror:
...although he hated the Yahoos of this country, yet he no more blamed them for their
odious qualities than he did a gnnayh (a bird of prey) for its
cruelty...But when a creature, pretending to reason, could be capable of such enormities, he
dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself.
In the eyes of this gentle being, the actions of ostensibly
reasonable man are absurd and decidedly unreasonable. Swift thus satirizes not only the
politicians who wage wars, but the confidence in science and reason itself. This was a sentiment
that he satirized throughout Gulliver's Travels, and in many of his other
works. These are only two examples of political and intellectual satire in a work that is shot
through with both, although many (but not all) of his references may be lost on readers not
familiar with eighteenth-century British politics.
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