"Swift has a very bleak view of human nature." Discuss the ways in which Swift uses various satirical techniques in Gulliver's Travels to expose ills of human nature and failings of Englandand Europe's societies and institutions.

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Ronnie Gunson                                                        3.3.02

      “Swift has a very bleak view of human nature.” Discuss the ways in which Swift uses various satirical techniques in Gulliver’s Travels to expose ills of human nature and failings of England and Europe’s societies and institutions.

Swift is a master of satirical writing, and his use of satirical technique in Gulliver’s Travels is of a deep and intense nature. In each mysterious island he visits, there is a subtle attack on European nature, and the way the people of his time lived and acted. Gulliver’s Travels was written to expose and open up the cracks in the society of his time. Each island he visits has no knowledge of Europe at all, and this further enhances the shock and dismay by the people and creatures he meets. It is a satirical technique used so the characters can amplify there emotions, thus creating a more shocking experience and reaction.

             Gulliver was the leader of a ship with an array of foreign crew because of heavy losses to his original crew. His ship crashes and he is finally cast upon the land of Lilliput. He falls to sleep due to sheer exhaustion and wakes up later, tied up. As he opens his eyes he see’s the inhabitants of Lilliput, the Lilliputians. With their six inch stature he is shocked and confused to whom these species could be. A short while later he is released and talks to the king of Lilliput. Sadly the tiny size of the inhabitants makes everything about them, such as concerns, and beliefs seem so irrelevant and pathetic. This is actually a subtle attack on the way Europeans quarrel, and how a poor government system is in place. The Lilliputians select spokesmen and men of power by jumping over a pole. They are also in a war over which side an egg should be eaten from. This depicts the way that men of power are selected in England and the pathetic reasons for war those men tell people.  Swift is trying to publicise England’s downfalls and mistakes by showing the small Lilliputians in a light which is really what Swift thinks of England.

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                Gulliver leaves Lillput and after a long period of travelling finds himself in Brobdingnag, an almost utopian society, which has no inadequacies and all the inhabitants have adequate food and good pay. The ironice problem being that he was the small one with the inhabitants of Brobdingnag being giants!The contrast between Brobdingnag and Europe is huge, and this portrays the faults of Europe in a much greater way. Gulliver proudly boasts about Europe naively, describing the House of Commons (at the time very corrupt) and its members to have a “great ability ...

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