Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift  

  

 Gulliver's Travels  is a prose satire by Irish Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature.Gulliver's Travels is the story of the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, the narrator and protagonist of the story. Gulliver is a married surgeon from Nottinghamshire, England, who has a taste for traveling. He works as a surgeon on ships and eventually becomes a ship captain.

       In the beginning of the story, Gulliver explains to the reader a bit about his background, why he was on these journeys to begin with, and where he finds himself at the beginning of his tale.  When Gulliver reaches the land of Brobdinag, he finds himself in the exact opposite situation that he was in when in Lilliput. In Brobdinag, it is Gulliver who is the tiny person, and the inhabitants of that land who appear to be giants.  Gulliver visits the land of Laputa. The stories that are contained within are a satire on specific figures and policies of the British government of the period in which Swift lived. When Gulliver reaches the land of the Houyhnhnms, we read a very fine story that we can still relate to today. There is a distinction made between the two type of people Gulliver encounters in this land. 

    When one reads this story in the light of it being a satire, the stories are still humorous, but one realizes that Swift was making a public statement about the affairs of England and of the human race as a whole.