Gulliver's Travels
A satirical voyage through strange societies, where scale, reason, pride, and political absurdity expose the weaknesses of human civilization.
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The book
Gulliver's Travels follows Lemuel Gulliver across a sequence of extraordinary journeys, each bringing him into contact with unfamiliar worlds that reflect human society in distorted form. In Lilliput, petty rivalries and ceremonial politics are reduced to miniature absurdity. In Brobdingnag, the human body and human ambition are made grotesquely large. In Laputa and related lands, abstract intellect and impractical theory are pushed to comic extremes. In the land of the Houyhnhnms, rational order stands in severe contrast to the degraded impulses represented by the Yahoos. Across these episodes, Jonathan Swift turns the travel narrative into a sharp instrument of satire, forcing readers to confront vanity, cruelty, self-deception, and the fragile dignity of civilized life.
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Significance
Jonathan Swift’s novel remains one of the defining works of satirical prose in English literature. It moves beyond adventure fiction by using fantasy and exaggeration to critique politics, empire, reason, class, and the human tendency toward self-importance. Its lasting power lies in the way it balances comic invention with deep pessimism about human behavior. Gulliver's Travels continues to matter because it can be read both as a lively imaginative journey and as a devastating moral and political critique of modern society.
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Fragments from this book
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Whenever I had a mind to see the town, it was always in my travelling-closet; which Glumdalclitch held in her lap in a kind of open sedan, after the fashion of the count…
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Content note · this fragment may contain distressing material.
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Content note · this fragment may contain distressing material.
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The land was divided by long rows of trees, not regularly planted, but naturally growing; there was great plenty of grass, and several fields of oats. I walked very circ…
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No person dined with the queen but the two princesses royal, the eldest sixteen years old, and the younger at that time thirteen and a month. Her majesty used to put a b…
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I began this desperate voyage on February 15, 1714–15, at nine o’clock in the morning. The wind was very favourable; however, I made use at first only of my paddles; but…
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Is seized and carried by force into a Portuguese ship. I began this desperate voyage on February 15, 1714–15, at nine o’clock in the morning.
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Content note · this fragment may contain distressing material.
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When it was found I could neither understand nor be understood, I was conducted by his order to an apartment in his palace (this prince being distinguished above all his…
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By his assistance, I was able to hold a conversation with those who came to visit me; but this consisted only of their questions, and my answers. The despatch came from …
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But I thought it more consistent with prudence and justice to pass the remainder of my days with my wife and family. A particular description of the Struldbrugs, with ma…
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For example, if my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it being a…