Like today, the laws in 18th century Britain were very long complicated things to read. Swift satirises the ridiculous length and the long-windedness of British laws using the Articles in ‘A voyage to Lilliput’ chapter 7. He uses formal language avoiding using slang and contractions, including long, complex sentences with several long clauses in each, for example article 1 which is made up of only one sentence but consisting of 113 words. Instead of breaking sentences up with full stops Swift joins them together using commas, this adds lots of unneeded detail to the articles. This is what Swift was trying to ridicule, that laws were ridiculously long and detailed. Swift felt that the British government spent too long wasting their time worrying pedantically about the little details of laws, and that they should be spending more time on the more serious issues. Swift avoids being emotional when writing the articles, this makes it more formal because it doesn’t include bias. A lot of complex language, including many polysyllabic words and the repeated use of the words ‘and’ and ‘said’, are used in the articles, ‘That the said Quinbus Flestrin’, ‘of the said royal palace’ and ‘you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death’ are all examples of this. ‘Painful and ignominious’ is also an interesting description, for me it brings images of fire and destruction, yet still in a serious sense because of the word ignominious, which is rarely used in society today. Swift uses Brobdingnag to put forward his proposal for changing the British Laws, using the king of Brobdingnag he states that ‘No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet’, he also says that ‘They are to be expressed in the most plain and simple terms’. This shows that Swift wanted laws to be less than 26 words long, which isn’t that long, he also wants them to straight to the point and not to ramble on about unnecessary details. Swift wanted to make his point clear in the articles thus demonstrating his anger about the hypocrisy and ingratitude towards the British public in the 18th century of the government. Swift criticises the hypocrisy of the government by demonstrating how one minute it acts professionally, such as the articles, and another minute it acts like a circus by electing the ministers who are the best at tricks.
Swift had a particular dislike of the British Government when he wrote 'Gulliver's Travels' and he made his views on the unfairness of the government very clear. During Gulliver’s time with the Lilliputians, Swift demonstrates his point by using the way in which new members were elected into the Lilliputian government. Swift wrote that the ministers would have to perform tricks to show their dexterity and the ministers that were the most entertaining would be chosen by the emperor to represent the state. Swift makes this sound like the equivalent of modern day elections. Swift felt that people in Britain got into the government by flattery, ‘sucking’ up to the prime minister. This is shown in Lilliput by ministers being trained from a very young age to perform such ridiculous acts to please the emperor thus getting elected into the government. Swift felt this is how it was in Britain as well and that people didn’t get elected because they were the best for the job or had the best understanding of politics but on their entertainment skills alone, “Whoever performs his part with the most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-coloured silk”, Swift describes this ridiculous way of being promoted to satirise the British elections. Swift used this example to demonstrate how he felt the Honours system worked in Britain, being elected by giving pleasure or pleasing those who have more power. Swift further satirises old traditions of the government such as the game ‘leaping and creeping’, this is were a the Lilliputian ministers try to please the emperor to get promoted, this is satirising how people get voted into the British government not on knowledge but pleasing the people above you. It was very unlikely that Swift would ever leave satirising the British government out of any book he wrote because of his anger with British politics having failed to get elected into it himself. Swift liked to satirise flattery, he felt that this was the made key to getting into the government. To satirise this Swift uses the introduction for the emperor in Lilliput before the nine requirements in Chapter 3, ‘taller than the sons of men; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter’, is just a small segment of the whole introduction. It is quite an amazing description as it compares the emperor to all 4 seasons, when normally people are only compared to one, for example, ‘as lovely as a summer’s day’. As you can see Swift obviously over-exaggerates this description to show his disgust for flattering and complimenting higher-ranked people than yourself purely for self gain. It is meant to be funny while having enough truth in it to be recognised as an attack on real life and the British Government.
The way in which Swift satirises the British government and laws is very clever because he never actually states that it is his view, he uses fictional characters to express his view, although eventually Swift was forced to leave England and go to Ireland feeling that he could never work in England again. For example in Lilliput Swift satirises how ridiculous the country is, which is meant to be England. Lilliput was a parody of England. However in Brobdingnag Swift satirises the politics of Britain in a different way by describing it to the king. Swift wrote 'Gulliver's Travels' to be read by the literate higher classes of the British society, he did this because he hoped that the higher class people would have the higher ranked jobs in the government and could change Britain. In chapter 6 Gulliver gave a long detailed, description of Britain’s History and the way in which it had been ruled in Swift’s time, the king was ‘perfectly astonished with the historical account’ Gulliver gave him. The king tried to protest that the affairs of Britain during the last century were ‘only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, banishments, faction, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred or ambition could produce.’ All of these are negative points about England which clearly shows Swift’s dislike of the country. Swift uses the King’s response to make his point even clearer; this allows Swift to show his disgust of British society without stating that he himself said it; this offended many people.
Another aspect of British society which Swift was very interested in was the physical human body and its functions. The public in the 18th century found the human body embarrassing, including things such as sanitation, which is perhaps why swift satirised it to show his unusual, for his time, interest in such things. Swift however was disgusted by bodily functions and he showed his disgust by using the differences for Gulliver in Lilliput and Brobdingnag. In Lilliput, where Gulliver was the large person, the empress was disgusted when she looked up at Gulliver walking over her but in Brobdingnag Gulliver was in horror with the maids breastfeeding the child, ‘I must confess no ever object ever disgusted me so much as the sight of her monstrous breast’ and ‘It stood six feet, and could not be less than sixteen in circumference. The nipple was about the half the bigness of my head.’ These are both examples of Swift’s hatred for human body parts because both of the descriptions for them are all negative. A second example of Swift’s interest in bodily functions is in Lilliput when Gulliver urinates on the Empress’ palace to save her from the fire, the ironic thing about this is that although Gulliver saved the Empress’ life from the fire he was later banished from the country for displaying such an act in front of the Empress. This is perhaps another satirical point from Swift mocking the English culture, maybe Swift feels like it’s unfair that even if you do something heroic, such as saving a royal family member, you can be convicted because of the method you used. Swift also satirises women and how vain they were, such as Chapter 5 in Brobdingnag ‘They would often strip me naked and lay me at full length in their bosoms; wherewith I was much disgusted; because, to say the truth, a very offensive smell came from their skins’ This is an example of Swift suggesting that women of his time were an illusion of physical beauty and that they weren’t as beautiful as was thought. Swift suggests that people often smelt hence why they used perfumes to cover the smell. Swift later states ‘I found their natural smell was much more supportable than when they used perfumes’, Swift was disgusted with how vain women were by using perfumes to try to impress the males, He could also be satirising how men wanted women to act like this. 18th century England was very different compared with modern day fashions, in the 18th century women tended to cover skin more compared to now where the fashion is to show as much skin as possible. So when Swift wrote in chapter 5 about the maids ‘stripping to the skin’ while Gulliver was in their presence, this would have been a preposterous thought for people of the 18th century even more than it would be now. Swift loved to satirise this because it was something that fascinated, it also makes us laugh in a childish way and would therefore keep us reading.
From reading “Gulliver’s Travels” it is clear that Swift had a very strong dislike of the culture and government of Britain and showed his disgust by satirising them using literature. Satire is a rude way of getting your point across often ridiculing something and will offend many people. When Swift wrote 'Gulliver's Travels' he said ‘he wanted to vex the world and intended to make people angry by holding a mirror up to English society’. Swift wrote 'Gulliver's Travels' as a satirical book but wasn’t sure how the British public would take it, so he first published it under the name Lemuel Gulliver, which makes it sound even more like a travelogue. Swift using Lilliput and Brobdingnag ridiculed Britain and offended the majority of the population, so when the public found out that Swift was the author of 'Gulliver's Travels', he felt he could no longer work in Britain, so he left the country and went to live in Ireland.
Bibliography – 'Gulliver's Travels' by Jonathan Swift
Word Count: 2,247
