Satire In Gulliver's Travels
...demonstrates that many issues we fight about and have had wars over, such as wars between Protestants and Catholics or England and France, are completely pointless; hardly any good, if any at all, can come from fighting over such trivial issues. Nothing is gained from fighting over such issues. In this section, Swift uses an exaggerated conflict to make us to look more carefully at the things we feel the most strongly for and fight about. In Gulliver’s next trip, which is to Brobdingnag, Swift continues his attacks on government. During his conversations with the king of Brobdingnag, Gulliver relates the culture and politics in Europe and why he believes they are superior to those of the Brobdingnagians. However, the king repudiates everything Gulliver relates to him; everything that seemed so important to Gulliver when he was back in Europe is now revealed to be trivial and useless. “But, by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wringed and extorted from you; I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives, to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth” (120-121). Even though Gulliver’s discussions with the king leave him feeling humiliated, he continues to protest in favor of Europe’s and, namely, England’s superiority. However, each point Gulliver makes to the king makes his whole argument seem more groundless, such as when Gulliver says that the English government is the finest of all governments, but the king completely destroys Gulliver’s argument. In this example, Swift exaggerates the ignorance of Europeans by having the king repudiate with excessive ease everything about European government and culture and uses this example to demonstrate that European people and government have their flaws that need to be addressed. Swift wants Europeans to address these problems and attack them head on to fix the flaws they have. In Gulliver’s next trip to Laputa, Swift continues to satirize government. The people of Laputa are governed by a king who lives on an island which also contains the nobility and scientists and floats above the kingdom. Swift exaggerates the metaphorical distance between rulers and subjects by giving an example of literal distance, Swift demonstrates that the king of Laputa, as are the kings of Europe, is so far removed from his subjects that he is completely unaware of their needs and concerns. Not only is the king completely unaware of the problems of his subjects, he does not care either. He is completely selfish and only takes any kind of action when he does not receive the taxes he levies. As well as attacking government, Swift also points out how inhuman scientists can be during Gulliver’s visit to Laputa. The scientists of Laputa walk around with “flappers” who arouse their masters from their thoughts and daydreams and regulate any speech between their master and anyone else. “It seems, the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculation, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being rouzed by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing” (149). Swift illustrates how inhuman scientists are; he depicts them as people who cannot control any aspect of their lives by themselves. They have to have these flappers control their lives for them. The only thing these scientists can do under their own power is their work, which hardly anyone else could understand, completely alienating them from society. Swift believes that something like science should not be handled by such bizarre people. Swift continues his attacks on science when Gulliver reaches Balnibarbi, where numerous projects are being carried out in the local academy. However, each of these projects, which include attempting to extract sunbeams from cucumbers and trying to reduce human excrement back to its original food, are not only utterly useless but impossibly flawed as well. More importantly, while these absurd projects are being undertaken, people are continually starving outside of the walls of the academy. Swift wants to change science completely. He either wants it to be funded less, since it produces nothing applicable while there are citizens starving, or to produce something applicable that citizens can use to enhance the quality of their lives. Once again by giving examples of extremely ridiculous projects of these scientists, Swift exaggerates the impracticality of science but still makes the reader question how practical science really is. Gulliver’s last voyage, which is to the country of the Houyhnhnms, may be the most important section in the novel. In stark contrast to Laputa, the citizens here have great lives and waste no time or money with science. In this section, Swift creates what many people would consider to be a utopia but demonstrates that it is not. By doing this, Swift points out that human nat...