Gulliver’s Travels | Gulliver’s Travels

At a glance:

Author: Jonathan Swift
First Published: 1726
Type of Work: Novel
Type of Plot: Social satire
Time of Work: 1699-1713
Setting: England and various fictional lands
Genres: Long fiction, Satire, Adventure
Subjects: Values, Traveling or travelers, Voyages, Intellectuals, Folkloric or magical people, Mythical animals, Politics, Prisoners, Escapes, Social issues, Religion, Class consciousness, Human race, Eighteenth century, Islands, Kings, queens, or royalty, Rulers, Fantasy, Corruption, Shipwrecks, Adventure, Government, Horses, Satire, Giants, Royal courts or courtiers
Locales: England, Mythical lands

Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon, sea captain, traveler, and the narrator of these travel accounts, the purpose of which is to satirize the pretentions and follies of humans. Gulliver is an ordinary man, capable of close observation; his deceptively matter-of-fact reportage and a great accumulation of detail make believable and readable a scathing political and social satire. On his first voyage, he is shipwrecked at Lilliput, a country inhabited by people no more than six inches tall, where pretentiousness, individual as well as political, is ridiculed. The...

Gulliver’s Travels | Gulliver’s Travels

At a glance:

Characters Discussed

Join eNotes