Political Satire in Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver’s Travels is one of the finest examples of political satire and political allegory in English literature. It was written by Jonathan Swift and he was an idealist person. He was not satisfied with the current situation of England. So, he strongly criticized the political system of his time. However, he did not criticize the system and its leaders directly. He used allegory as a literary device. 

 

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Allegory is a widely used literary technique to present something in disguise. For example, Jonathan Swift is criticizing England and its political leaders but he is doing through Lilliputs and its people. It should be noted here that during Jonathan Swift’s time England did not have a high level of democracy and freedom. Writing a political satire directly was risky. Even Jonathan Swift could have lost his head if he criticized the king and his ministers directly. So, allegory was a safer option and even was more entertaining. Swift could give his message in a very effective way.

In book 1, Gulliver traveled to Lilliput. The people were divided on a very simple issue- which ends of the egg to break. It was a very nonsense matter, but this was enough to keep the people of Lilliput busy in the situation of almost like a civil war. The condition of England was like this. In the past 150 years (1550-1780), people of England were divided about which version of Christianity to follow- Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism or Puritanism. People belong to one sect used to hate others despite the matter that all of them were Christians. Even there was a bloody civil war during 1642-1660.

The king of England and his ministers had the same authority like the king of Lilliput and minister. At that time, there were two large parties in England- Tory and Whig. They also used to differ on everything. As a result, there was no political stability in the country just like Lilliput.

Jonathan Swift used to live in Ireland. For many years, Ireland had been a colony of England. Although Jonathan Swift was an English man, he was against this kind of colonialism.

In book 4, we can see that Gulliver traveled to Houyhnhnms. There, Houyhnhnms (Horses) considered Yahoos (human) inferior, ugly and uncivilized. The English people had the same attitude towards the people of Ireland. They used to believe that the Irish people were unfit to rule themselves just like the Yahoos. Jonathan Swift did not like this idea because he could clearly understand that the Irish people were suffering from exploitation. However, criticizing England could have been dangerous. So, Jonathan Swift used allegory to criticize England’s rule on Irish people.