Description

Gulliver’s Travels

In Book I, we have an exposure of human pride and pretensions, of cruelty, vanities, rituals, and meaningless quarrels that characterize man in society. The satire in this part is particularly aimed at the politics of Swift’s day and of all days. The description of the statesmen who obtain place and honor by cutting capers (jumping merrily) on the tight rope before their sovereign, and the two great parties the Littledians and Bigendians who plunged the country into civil war which took a toll of eleven thousand human lives over the question of whether an egg should be broken on its larger end or smaller end is a scathing satire on the politics and statesmanship of the day.