Gulliver's Travels Inside Humanity

Gulliver's Travels is a scathing satire written about 18th century England by the top satirist of his age.

Jonathan Swift is Gulliver - and is the one who travels the world and runs into people who symbolize specifically the British people that he most despised and, in general, the type of people that he most despised.

There are four separate worlds that Gulliver enters - and in each one he finds something to be seriously wrong - and weird - about the inhabitants.

In Lilliput, the people are very tiny - he could easily crush them in his hand. But, being benevolent, he chooses not to - and in fact even helps them, though they have made their introduction to him by tying him up. In the end, he is made to leave these people because he saved the king and queen by urinating on their castle fire. This is classic Swift in his monomania - only he can save the kingdom and they are too bothered by their method to properly appreciate it. The people are too absorbed in little details to see the big picture.

In Brobidingnag, the people are huge - even the dwarf is ninety meters tall! The king's daughter here adopts Gulliver as a sort of pet - and the dwarf sees him as someone he can pick on for a change(since everyone picked on the "tiny" dwarf before. Here, the people have the opposite problem - they can't see the details because they are (literally and figuratively) above it all.

In Laputia, the people are normal-sized(by human standards), but have an inane penchant for doing weird research - trying to get rainbows from ice cubes and the like. The people live in a "floating island" and are literally and figuratively removed from the world.

Finally, swift completes his condemnation of humanity in a world where the humans are yahoos - utterly devoid of any redeeming qualities and the wildest of beasts. He does find good noble creatures here in the HORSES. It is the horses who have all the redeeming qualities Gulliver searches for vain in the various types of humans he encounters.

The satire is incisive and complete. Swift's characterizations are over-drawn, perhaps, but, then that is essentially the nature of satire. This is the best of the satirical novels.