Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a novel about the adventures of a man named Lemuel Gulliver, who travels through various kingdoms and encounters a wide variety of people. Swift uses the differences between the communities of individuals Gulliver interacts with, as well as Gulliver’s views on and opinions of them, to repeatedly emphasize the central themes of the novel, especially social status. Influenced by his political and religious views and the government of his time, Jonathan Swift uses the prominent themes of Gulliver’s Travels and peoples which Gulliver encounters to satirize the class system eighteenth century English society imposed from birth, as well as its politics as a whole and, more broadly, the corruptness of human nature.
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Gulliver’s negative observations of and interactions with the Lilliputians draw a parallel with Swift’s disapproval of the world in which he lives. Swift’s pessimistic sentiments are ironic considering he mocked “the manners and methods of the public scene in which he himself was immersed” (O’Brien). Swift satirized the very communities of which he was a part in the same way Gulliver analyzes the lands he visits. Politically, socially, and religiously, Swift’s perspectives on English and Irish society came from deep within the groups he so viciously judged in writing. Swift’s religious influence resulted from his “involvement in the politics of clerical relations between England and Ireland [which] led to [his] association with powerful figures in the public life of both countries” (O’Brien). Swift’s prominent presence in several aspects of English culture gave his societal critiques deeper meaning, his condemnations more gravity. He looked upon society as inherently dirty, and humanity as inherently evil. Swift’s belief that people are naturally bad is evident from his “contempt for the poor and beggared, who he argues probably brought their impoverishment on themselves through drink or lack of industry” (Dirda). His merciless stance on the poor as beyond help, and as having brought their circumstances upon themselves, is reflective of Swift’s outlook on humanity as a whole. Swift stresses the negative aspects of mankind, both in his life and in his writing. Reflecting his view of society in his literary work, Swift “expressed the more gloomy Hobbesian view on human nature, and not that optimistic Lockeian view” (Speck 89). Relating to the Enlightenment thinkers’ notions of people as self-serving and lowly and as reasonable and tolerant, respectively, Swift tends to characterize the groups of people about which he writes as one of the two. In
Gulliver’s negative observations of and interactions with the Lilliputians draw a parallel with Swift’s disapproval of the world in which he lives. Swift’s pessimistic sentiments are ironic considering he mocked “the manners and methods of the public scene in which he himself was immersed” (O’Brien). Swift satirized the very communities of which he was a part in the same way Gulliver analyzes the lands he visits. Politically, socially, and religiously, Swift’s perspectives on English and Irish society came from deep within the groups he so viciously judged in writing. Swift’s religious influence resulted from his “involvement in the politics of clerical relations between England and Ireland [which] led to [his] association with powerful figures in the public life of both countries” (O’Brien). Swift’s prominent presence in several aspects of English culture gave his societal critiques deeper meaning, his condemnations more gravity. He looked upon society as inherently dirty, and humanity as inherently evil. Swift’s belief that people are naturally bad is evident from his “contempt for the poor and beggared, who he argues probably brought their impoverishment on themselves through drink or lack of industry” (Dirda). His merciless stance on the poor as beyond help, and as having brought their circumstances upon themselves, is reflective of Swift’s outlook on humanity as a whole. Swift stresses the negative aspects of mankind, both in his life and in his writing. Reflecting his view of society in his literary work, Swift “expressed the more gloomy Hobbesian view on human nature, and not that optimistic Lockeian view” (Speck 89). Relating to the Enlightenment thinkers’ notions of people as self-serving and lowly and as reasonable and tolerant, respectively, Swift tends to characterize the groups of people about which he writes as one of the two. In