Describe a character sketch of Gulliver.

Gulliver, as
his name implies, is gullible, or easily deceived: he tends to trust too much in appearances.
However, he is not witless, as he manages to survive the many perils of his travel.

Gulliver is not an imaginative person but more a recorder of facts. We can trust that
he will give us an accurate accounting of what he sees on his travels, but at the same time, he
may not understand the implication or deeper meaning of what is going on. This leads to comedy,
as he will give straight faced, earnest accountings of ridiculous inventions or rituals he
observes, not seeming to understand how ludicrous they are.

Despite all this,
Gulliver is a kind-hearted man, even though this trait gets him into trouble. His tendency to
surface evaluations, such as thinking the petty and mean Lilliputians must be good because they
are tiny and attractive, leads readers to reflect on their own superficial judgments. At the
end, Gulliver goes overboard in his love of the Houyhnhnms by coming back to Europe and living
in a stable with horses. This is an indication of his moral goodnesshe wants European society to
behave more rationally and humanelybut also warns us not to go to extremes in our rejection of
humanity.