Editing Gulliver's Travels (section)

==Major themes==
{{Essay|section|date=December 2022}}
[[File:James Gillray The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver.–Vide. Swift's Gulliver- Voyage to Brobdingnag The Metropolitan Museum of Art edit.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver'' by [[James Gillray]] (1803), (satirising [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] and [[George III]]). [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York]]
''Gulliver's Travels'' has been described as a [[Menippean satire]], a children's story, proto-science fiction and a forerunner of the modern novel.

Published seven years after [[Daniel Defoe]]'s successful ''[[Robinson Crusoe]]'', ''Gulliver's Travels'' may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In ''The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man'', [[Warren Montag]] argues that Swift was concerned to refute the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's work seems to suggest. Swift regarded such thought as a dangerous endorsement of [[Thomas Hobbes]]' radical political philosophy and for this reason Gulliver repeatedly encounters established societies rather than desolate islands. The captain who invites Gulliver to serve as a surgeon aboard his ship on the disastrous third voyage is named Robinson.

[[Allan Bloom]] asserts that Swift's lampooning of the experiments of Laputa is the first questioning by a modern liberal democrat of the effects and cost on a society which embraces and celebrates policies pursuing scientific progress.<ref>{{cite book|author=Bloom, Allan |isbn=9780671707774|title=Giants and Dwarfs: An Outline of Gulliver's Travels|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1990|location=New York|pages=47–51}}</ref> Swift wrote:
{{Blockquote |text=The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me "to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers". I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them.}}

A possible reason for the book's classic status is that it can be seen as many things to many people. Broadly, the book has three themes:
* A satirical view of the state of European government, and of petty differences between religions
* An inquiry into whether people are inherently corrupt or whether they become corrupted
* A restatement of the older "ancients versus moderns" controversy previously addressed by Swift in ''[[The Battle of the Books]]''

In storytelling and construction the parts follow a pattern:
* The causes of Gulliver's misadventures become more malignant as time goes on—he is first shipwrecked, then abandoned, then attacked by strangers, then attacked by his own crew.
* Gulliver's attitude hardens as the book progresses—he is genuinely surprised by the viciousness and politicking of the Lilliputians but finds the behaviour of the Yahoos in the fourth part reflective of the behaviour of people.
* Each part is the reverse of the preceding part—Gulliver is big/small/wise/ignorant, the countries are complex/simple/scientific/natural, and Gulliver perceives the forms of government as worse/better/worse/better than Britain's (although Swift's opinions on this matter are unclear).
* Gulliver's viewpoint between parts is mirrored by that of his [[antagonist]]s in the contrasting part—Gulliver sees the tiny Lilliputians as being vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light; Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and his Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so.
* No form of government is ideal—the simplistic Brobdingnagians enjoy public executions and have streets infested with beggars, the honest and upright Houyhnhnms who have no word for lying are happy to suppress the true nature of Gulliver as a Yahoo and are equally unconcerned about his reaction to being expelled.
* Specific individuals may be good even where the race is bad—Gulliver finds a friend in each of his travels and, despite Gulliver's rejection and horror toward all Yahoos, is treated very well by the Portuguese captain, Don Pedro, who returns him to England at the book's end.

=== Misogyny ===
Although Swift is often accused of [[misogyny]] in this work, many scholars believe Gulliver's blatant misogyny to be intentional, and that Swift uses satire to openly mock misogyny throughout the book. One of the most cited examples of this comes from Gulliver's description of a Brobdingnagian woman:

{{blockquote|I must confess no Object ever disgusted me so much as the Sight of her monstrous Breast, which I cannot tell what to compare with, so as to give the curious Reader an Idea of its Bulk, Shape, and Colour.... This made me reflect upon the fair Skins of our ''English'' Ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own Size, and their Defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass....
}}

This open critique towards aspects of the female body is something that Swift often brings up in other works of his, particularly in poems such as ''The Lady's Dressing Room'' and ''A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rogers|first=Katharine M.|date=1959|title='My Female Friends': The Misogyny of Jonathan Swift|jstor=40753638|journal=Texas Studies in Literature and Language|volume=1|issue=3|pages=366–79}}</ref>

A criticism of Swift's use of misogyny by [[Felicity A. Nussbaum]] proposes the idea that "Gulliver himself is a gendered object of satire, and his antifeminist sentiments may be among those mocked". Gulliver’s own masculinity is often mocked, seen in how he is made to be a coward among the Brobdingnag people, repressed by the people of Lilliput, and viewed as an inferior Yahoo among the Houyhnhnms.<ref name="1667-1745">{{Cite book|title=Gulliver's travels : complete, authoritative text with biographical and historical contexts, critical history, and essays from five contemporary critical perspectives|last=Swift|first=Jonathan|others=Fox, Christopher|isbn=978-0312066659|location=Boston|oclc=31794911|date = 1994}}</ref>

Nussbaum goes on to say in her analysis of the misogyny of the stories that in the adventures, particularly in the first story, the satire is not singularly focused on satirizing women, but to satirize Gulliver himself as a politically naive and inept giant whose masculine authority comically seems to be in jeopardy.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Gulliver's travels : complete, authoritative text with biographical and historical contexts, critical history, and essays from five contemporary critical perspectives|last=Swift, Jonathan|others=Fox, Christopher|isbn=0-312-10284-4|location=Boston|oclc=31794911|year = 1995}}</ref>

Another criticism of Swift's use of misogyny delves into Gulliver's repeated use of the word 'nauseous', and the way that Gulliver is fighting his emasculation by commenting on how he thinks the women of Brobdingnag are disgusting.

{{blockquote|Swift has Gulliver frequently invoke the sensory (as opposed to reflective) word "nauseous" to describe this and other magnified images in Brobdingnag not only to reveal the neurotic depths of Gulliver's misogyny, but also to show how male nausea can be used as a pathetic countermeasure against the perceived threat of female consumption. Swift has Gulliver associate these magnified acts of female consumption with the act of "throwing-up"—the opposite of and antidote to the act of gastronomic consumption.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Armintor |first=Deborah Needleman |date=2007 |title=The Sexual Politics of Microscopy in Brobdingnag |journal=SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 |volume=47 |issue=3 |pages=619–40 |jstor=4625129|doi=10.1353/sel.2007.0022 |s2cid=154298114 }}</ref>
}}

This commentary of Deborah Needleman Armintor relies upon the way that the giant women do with Gulliver as they please, in much the same way as one might play with a toy, and get it to do everything one can think of.  Armintor's comparison focuses on the pocket microscopes that were popular in Swift's time.  She talks about how this instrument of science was transitioned to something toy-like and accessible, so it shifted into something that women favored, and thus men lost interest.  This is similar to the progression of Gulliver's time in Brobdingnag, from man of science to women's plaything.

=== Comic misanthropy ===
[[Misanthropy]] is a theme that scholars have identified in ''Gulliver's Travels''.  Arthur Case, R.S. Crane, and Edward Stone discuss [[Lemuel Gulliver|Gulliver]]'s development of misanthropy and come to the consensus that this theme ought to be viewed as comical rather than cynical.<ref name=":02">{{cite book|author=Case, Arthur E. |chapter=From 'The Significance of ''Gulliver’s Travels''.'|title=A Casebook on Gulliver Among the Houyhnhnms|editor1= Milton P. Foster|publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell Company|year= 1961|pages=139–47}}</ref><ref name=":12">{{cite book|author=Crane, R.S.|chapter=The Houyhnhnms, the Yahoos, and the History of Ideas|title=Twentieth Century Interpretations of Gulliver's Travels: A Collection of Critical Essays|editor1= Frank Brady|isbn=9780133715675|publisher=T Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall|year= 1968|pages= 80–88}}</ref><ref name=":22">{{cite book|author=Stone, Edward|chapter=Swift and the Horses: Misanthropy or Comedy?|title=A Casebook on Gulliver Among the Houyhnhnms|editor1= Milton P. Foster|publisher=T Thomas Y. Crowell Company|year= 1961|pages= 180–92}}</ref>

In terms of Gulliver's development of misanthropy, these three scholars point to the fourth voyage.  According to Case, Gulliver is at first averse to identifying with the [[Yahoo (Gulliver's Travels)|Yahoos]], but, after he deems the [[Houyhnhnm]]s superior, he comes to believe that humans (including his fellow Europeans) are Yahoos due to their shortcomings.  Perceiving the Houyhnhnms as perfect, Gulliver thus begins to perceive himself and the rest of humanity as imperfect.<ref name=":02" /> According to Crane, when Gulliver develops his misanthropic mindset, he becomes ashamed of humans and views them more in line with animals.<ref name=":12" /> This new perception of Gulliver's, Stone claims, comes about because the Houyhnhnms' judgement pushes Gulliver to identify with the Yahoos.<ref name=":22" /> Along similar lines, Crane holds that Gulliver's misanthropy is developed in part when he talks to the Houyhnhnms about mankind because the discussions lead him to reflect on his previously held notion of humanity.  Specifically, Gulliver’s master, who is a Houyhnhnm, provides questions and commentary that contribute to Gulliver’s reflectiveness and subsequent development of misanthropy.<ref name=":12" /> However, Case points out that Gulliver's dwindling opinion of humans may be blown out of proportion due to the fact that he is no longer able to see the good qualities that humans are capable of possessing.  Gulliver’s new view of humanity, then, creates his repulsive attitude towards his fellow humans after leaving Houyhnhnmland.<ref name=":02" /> But in Stone's view, Gulliver’s actions and attitude upon his return can be interpreted as misanthropy that is exaggerated for comic effect rather than for a cynical effect.  Stone further suggests that Gulliver goes mentally mad and believes that this is what leads Gulliver to exaggerate the shortcomings of humankind.<ref name=":22" />

Another aspect that Crane attributes to Gulliver’s development of misanthropy is that when in Houyhnhnmland, it is the animal-like beings (the Houyhnhnms) who exhibit reason and the human-like beings (the Yahoos) who seem devoid of reason; Crane argues that it is this switch from Gulliver’s perceived norm that leads the way for him to question his view of humanity.  As a result, Gulliver begins to identify humans as a type of Yahoo.  To this point, Crane brings up the fact that a traditional definition of man—''Homo est animal rationale'' (Humans are rational animals)—was prominent in academia around [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]]'s time.  Furthermore, Crane argues that Swift had to study this type of logic (see [[Porphyrian tree|Porphyrian Tree]]) in college, so it is highly likely that he intentionally inverted this logic by placing the typically given example of irrational beings—horses—in the place of humans and vice versa.<ref name=":12" />

Stone points out that ''Gulliver's Travels'' takes a cue from the genre of the travel book, which was popular during Swift's time period.  From reading travel books, Swift’s contemporaries were accustomed to beast-like figures of foreign places; thus, Stone holds that the creation of the Yahoos was not out of the ordinary for the time period.  From this playing off of familiar genre expectations, Stone deduces that the parallels that Swift draws between the Yahoos and humans is meant to be humorous rather than cynical.  Even though Gulliver sees Yahoos and humans as if they are one and the same, Stone argues that Swift did not intend for readers to take on Gulliver’s view; Stone states that the Yahoos' behaviors and characteristics that set them apart from humans further supports the notion that Gulliver's identification with Yahoos is not meant to be taken to heart.  Thus, Stone sees Gulliver’s perceived superiority of the Houyhnhnms and subsequent misanthropy as features that Swift used to employ the satirical and humorous elements characteristic of the Beast Fables of travel books that were popular with his contemporaries; as Swift did, these Beast Fables placed animals above humans in terms of morals and reason, but they were not meant to be taken literally.<ref name=":22" />

===Character analysis===
'''Pedro de Mendez''' is the name of the Portuguese captain who rescues Gulliver in Book IV. When Gulliver is forced to leave the Island of the [[Houyhnhnms]], his plan is "to discover some small Island uninhabited" where he can live in solitude. Instead, he is picked up by Don Pedro's crew. Despite Gulliver's appearance—he is dressed in skins and speaks like a horse—Don Pedro treats him compassionately and returns him to Lisbon.

Though Don Pedro appears only briefly, he has become an important figure in the debate between so-called soft school and hard school readers of ''Gulliver's Travels''. Some critics contend that Gulliver is a target of Swift's satire and that Don Pedro represents an ideal of human kindness and generosity. Gulliver believes humans are similar to Yahoos in the sense that they make "no other use of reason, than to improve and multiply ... vices".<ref name="DeMaria Jr"/> Captain Pedro provides a contrast to Gulliver's reasoning, proving humans are able to reason, be kind, and most of all: civilized. Gulliver sees the bleak fallenness at the center of human nature, and Don Pedro is merely a minor character who, in Gulliver's words, is "an Animal which had some little Portion of Reason".<ref>Clifford, James (1974) "Gulliver's Fourth Voyage: 'hard' and 'soft' Schools of Interpretation". ''Quick Springs of Sense: Studies in the Eighteenth Century''. Ed. Larry Champion. Athens: U of Georgia Press. pp. 33–49. {{ISBN|9780820303130}}</ref>

=== Political allusions ===
Part I is probably responsible for the greatest number of political allusions. One of the most commonly noted parallels is that the wars between Lilliput and Blefuscu resemble those between England and France.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Harth|first=Phillip|date=May 1976|title=The Problem of Political Allegory in "Gulliver's Travels"|journal=Modern Philology|volume=73|issue=4, Part 2|pages=S40–S47|doi=10.1086/390691|s2cid=154047160}}</ref> The enmity between the low heels and the high heels is often interpreted as a parody of the Whigs and Tories, and the character referred to as Flimnap is often interpreted as an allusion to [[Robert Walpole|Sir Robert Walpole]], a British statesman and Whig politician who Swift had a personally turbulent relationship with.

In Part III, the grand Academy of Lagado in Balnibarbi resembles and satirizes the [[Royal Society]], which Swift was openly critical of. Furthermore, "A. E. Case, acting on a tipoff offered by the word 'projectors,' found [the Academy] to be the hiding place of many of those speculators implicated in the [[South Sea Company|South Sea Bubble]]."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Treadwell|first=J. M.|date=1975|title=Jonathan Swift: The Satirist as Projector|journal=Texas Studies in Literature and Language|volume=17|issue=2|pages=439–460|jstor=40754389}}</ref> According to Treadwell, however, these implications extend beyond the speculators of the South Sea Bubble to include the many projectors of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century England, including Swift himself. Not only is Swift satirizing the role of the projector in contemporary English politics, which he dabbled in during his younger years, but the role of the satirist, whose goals align with that of a projector: "The less obvious corollary of that word [projector] is that it must include the poor deluded satirist himself, since satire is, in its very essence, the wildest of all projects - a scheme to reform the world."<ref name=":0" />

Ann Kelly describes Part IV of ''The Travels'' and the Yahoo-Houyhnhnm relationship as an allusion to that of the Irish and the British: "The term that Swift uses to describe the oppression in both Ireland and Houyhnhnmland is 'slavery'; this is not an accidental word choice, for Swift was well aware of the complicated moral and philosophical questions raised by the emotional designation 'slavery.' The misery of the Irish in the early eighteenth century shocked Swift and all others who witnessed it; the hopeless passivity of the people in this desolate land made it seem as if both the minds and bodies of the Irish were enslaved."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kelly|first=Ann Cline|date=October 1976|title=Swift's Explorations of Slavery in Houyhnhnmland and Ireland|journal=Publications of the Modern Language Association of America|volume=91|issue=5|pages=846–855|doi=10.2307/461560|jstor=461560|s2cid=163799730 }}</ref> Kelly goes on to write: "Throughout the Irish tracts and poems, Swift continually vacillates as to whether the Irish are servile because of some defect within their character or whether their sordid condition is the result of a calculated policy from without to reduce them to brutishness. Although no one has done so, similar questions could be asked about the Yahoos, who are slaves to the Houyhnhnms." However, Kelly does not suggest a wholesale equivalence between Irish and Yahoos, which would be reductive and omit the various other layers of satire at work in this section.