One of the most interesting objects ofsatire in this final section of the book is England itself, and its colonial practices. This emerges when Gulliver seeks to justify why he did not claim any of the lands he visited for the crown. Initially he argues that the countries he visited were not worth conquering. However, he goes on to attack the very process of colonisation itself in the following quote:

...they go on Shore to rob and plunder; they see an harmless People, are entertained with Kindness, they give the Country a new Name, they take formal Possession of it for the King, they set up a rotten Plank or a Stone for a Memorial, they murder two or three Dozen of the Natives, bring away a Couple more by Force for a Sample, return home, and get their Pardon. Here commences a New Dominion acquired with a Title by Divine Right... the Earth reeking with the Blood of its Inhabitants.

In this quote, colonisation is presented as a practice that is only at heart a terrible activity based on "murder" and robbery condoned by the state is one that was deeply controversial for Swift's time. What is satirical about this presentation is the way that Swift employs one of his typical satirical techniques, as he describes colonisation without explaining what it is that he is talking about, allowing us as readers to form our own impressions in our mind, before revealing to us that he is talking about something else entirely, exposing our own assumptions and forcing us as readers to be challenged with his satire. In this quote, Swift achieves this with his presentation of the process of colonisation, satirising it and forcing his readers to see colonisation in a completely different light and in a much more negative fashion. 

Swift is using Gulliver's voyages to satirize various aspects of English society.  Gulliver's various conflicts in the lands he visits allow Swift to discuss a number of problems he sees with English society and the way England is governed.

When Gulliver washes ashore on Lilliput, for example, he soon observes that the Emperor of Lilliput chooses his ministers not on the basis of their ability to govern but on their ability to walk a tightrope.  This is Swift's thinly-veiled criticism of how George I, the King of England, chooses his ministers--in this case, not on their ability to walk a tightrope but on their connections within the court and whether or not they will make decisions based on what King George wants them to do rather than on what is right for the English.  In another instance, Swift, through Gulliver, criticizes the religious animosity within English society by telling us about the hatred between those Lillitputians who open their eggs from the small end or the large end first.  The point is, of course, that it doesn't matter what end one opens an egg, but Swift is pointing out how ridiculous some controversies are.

Again, in the third voyage, to the island of Laputa, Gulliver discovers a race of people who are so detached from reality that they require their servants to carry inflated bladders and hit them in order to remind them bring them back from highly speculative thought to real-world concerns.  Gulliver tells us, for example, that some of these people are actually trying to build a house from the top down, a physical impossibility, but symptomatic of how removed from everyday reality these people are.  Swift is satirizing the over-abundance of genuine "projectors" in England who were constantly coming up with outlandish and unworkable ways to cure society's problems.

When Gulliver lands in the land of the Houyhnhnms, he discovers a race of horses who are perfectly rational, unemotional, logical beings, and the uncivilized brutes of this society, the Yahoos, are human beings.  During this experience, Gulliver actually loses his own identity and considers himself a kind of Houyhnhnm rather than a human being, and when he returns to England, he can barely stand being around people, preferring horses for company.  Swift is satirizing anyone who chooses a philosophy over reality.

In the end, Swift has managed--through the framework of a child's fairy tale--to point out many problems in English society that need correction, and he has accomplished this without pointing overtly to specific people within English society.

Gulliver's Travels satirizes many of humankind's most negative traits. In the first and second parts, including Gulliver's trips to Lilliput and Brobdingnag, Swift draws attention to the way in which we resort to war or physical conflict to solve many of our problems. Swift also satirizes the way we feel the need to control others' basic ways of life, in terms of religion, when he has Gulliver describe the Trameckstans and Slameckstans and their disagreements. Further, by showing the response of the peace-loving Brobdingnagian king to Gulliver's prideful boasting about gunpowder and other weaponry, Swift emphasizes our brutality and savagery.

Swift satirizes the contemporary rage for conducting useless experiments in the name of progress and science, even when they have no benefit whatsoever for humankind. Experiments like attempting to extricate sunshine from cucumbers or return human fecal matter to its original food matter are depicted as a waste of money, resources, and brainpower. Science can be incredibly useful, and its potential benefit to humanity should perhaps be the way in which we measure whether an experiment is worthwhile or not.

Swift also points out the way in which human beings are incredibly animalistic in part four. The Yahoos are very like us, a similarity that we ought to find somewhat troubling, given how disgusting and loathsome they are. Swift satirizes our greed and selfishness through these creatures.

One of the many aspects of Swift's satire in this work is the way that concepts such as colonisation and utopia are presented. The many different worlds that Gulliver discovers on his travels are meant to satirically present the themes of colonisiation and utopia, which were of much interest at the time, as indeed they remain of interest (albeit in different ways) today. Consider, for example, the way in which Gulliver apologises for not claiming the lands he visited for England in Part IV Chapter XII. He offers a very satirical presentation of colonisation:

They go on Shore to rob and plunder; they see an harmless People, are entertained with Kindness, they give the Country a new Name, they take formal Possession of it for the King, they set up a rotten Plank or a Stone for a Memorial, they murder two or three Dozen of the Natives, bring away a Couple more by Force for a Sample, return home, and get their Pardon. Here commences a New Dominion acquired with a Title by Divine Right... the Earth reeking with the Blood of its Inhabitants.

What is fascinating about this presentation of colonisation is how radical it would have been for Swift's time. He argues that it is nothing more than a criminal activity sanctioned by the state who deliberately exploit other peoples for their own benefit. Swift employs a typical satirical strategy of introducing something without naming it and then going on to name it in a different way from what we are expecting as readers, thus challenging our assumptions and thinking. In particular, the last phrase, in which colonisation is described as "the Earth reeking with the Blood of its Inhabitants," is one that is particularly revealing in terms of how Swift satirically presents colonisation. Swift's satire is thus terse and vigorous in the way that it forces his readers to examine their own assumptions and views, and hopefully to begin to change them.

Lilliput and Blefuscu are satirical depictions of England and France. Like England and France, these two countries are at one another's throats politically and culturally. Their big dispute is between whether a boiled egg should be eaten from the big end up or the little end up-- a jab at the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism.

While scholars disagree as to what exactly we are to make of the Houyhnhnms, a common idea is that they might be satirizing English colonialism, the way other cultures are viewed as inherently lesser than the so-called civilized British Empire. The Houyhnhnms treat humans like chattel.

Laputa is a land of scholars who make no practical use of their knowledge. Swift was probably lampooning some elements of the Enlightenment, such as the mind being totally separated from matter. That the city floats in the air is symbolic of how they have no connection to the real world. They are too abstract. The Royal Academy is likely the model for the air-headed Laputian scholars.

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a satirical look at England in the Enlightenment period. It is filled with humorous jabs at English politics, manners, business, and science. Here are three famous satirical aspects of the Lilliputian society:

Rope Dancers: Applicants for court positions danced on a suspended rope for the Emperor. Although this dance did nothing to prove a person's ability to perform a court function, the winners were given the jobs.

Silken Threads: Social status was determined in part by how well an act of dexterity was performed. Participants jumped over or maneuvered under a stick held out by the Emperor. Depending on how well the Emperor judged them to have performed the feat they were given silken threads of a certain color to wear around their waists.

High-heelers vs. Low-heelers: The main political division in Lilliput was signified by the size of the heels on a person's shoes. Low-heelers were the dominant political group and high-heelers were shunned. One character had one high-heel and one low-heel.

In Gulliver's Travels, Swift manages to satirize politicians, religion, science, society, and even the king in 18th-century England, using the framework of what is, on one level, a child's fantasy tale, and on a deeper level, a very astute commentary on serious problems Swift saw in England.

During the first voyage, for example, while Dr. Gulliver is in the land of Lilliput, he discovers that the king chooses his ministers not on the basis of their political skills or desire to rule for the common good but on their ability to dance on a tightrope, a not-so implicit criticism of how King George's ministers obtain their positions.  Swift also targets the prevailing political parties in England when he comments on the Lilliputians' religious divisions between those who wear low-heeled and high-heeled shoes and those how open their eggs from the small and large ends first, satirizing the relatively insignificant differences between the Low Church and High Church, and the constant struggle between the Catholics and Protestants.

When he gets to the land of the Brobdingnags, which has a peaceful society, Gulliver describes contemporary English politics and society to the king, whose response is that Gulliver's society must be filled with "the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin. . . ."  This is basically double-barreled satire: Swift's readers, who would have considered themselves to be the greatest of European socieites, are presented with a unflattering view of themselves from an ostensibly neutral observer, the King of Brobdingnag.

Swift's most culturally sensitive satire comes in the fourth voyage--the Land of the Houyhnhnms--where he meets a race of rational horses whose servants are basically non-rational human beings called the Yahoos, a word that has ever since been used to describe uncivilized, uncultured people.  The difference between the rational horses and the Yahoos allows Swift to criticize the nature of man more closely than in the other voyages, and his view is that man, who should be controlled by the higher elements of his nature, is instead a victim of the baser elements.

All is not lost, however, because the aim of satire is to improve what is being satirized, and Swift has made a mighty attempt to improve his society.

'Gulliver's Travels'by Jonathon Swift is often thought of a children's book, yet it's unmerciful satire is aimed at adults. In this book he attempted to critcize some of the elements of the establishment and society he lived in through poking fun at it. He also wrote essays and pamphlets which outlined his grievances in a more direct way, but satire is often admired as a far more subtle and effective form of social critique as people are so often laughing at themselves. This art was not lost on some of his more enlightened contemporaries and he was often 'put down' by royal, establishment and government agencies. Any analysis of Swift's use of satire must pay attention to the way in which he attempted to disguise ferocious criticism by couching it in the seemingly ludicrous, comic or ridiculous.

One could write page after page analyzing Swift's use of satire in Gulliver's Travels.  Specifically, some of his targets are religious schisms, politicians, a hawkish war mentality, and gambling.  In general, he targets political, social, and economic institutions. Even more broadly, he is ridiculing human vice and folly.  Swift's methods of achieving this satire are numerous.  He mixes obvious parallels between his fictional world and his European world with more disguised parallels (in description of the big-endian issue and the channel that separates Lilliput from Blefuscu), for instance.  He also uses much verbal irony, as when he contradicts the evidence contained in the work itself by describing England as, "...the seat of virtue, piety, honor and truth,..."  Swift's targets and methods might be two places to start when analyzing his satire in Gulliver's Travels.

Gulliver's Travels is a satirical work, and its main target is the experimental science promoted by Enlightenment thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton. 

The Enlightenment was marked by a particular theory of human nature, wherein human beings were seen as inherently rational creatures who were capable of attaining intellectual enlightenment; a certain optimism marks many writings from this time period. Swift, on the other hand, displays a pessimism about human nature and rationality that runs counter to the spirit of the Enlightenment. The strongest satire concerning human nature can be found in part IV ("Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms") where humans are like the irrational Yahoos.

His first adventure into Lilliput is a satire about the wars fought between England and France, with Blefescu standing for France and Lilliput for England. In general, the first two parts satirize European politics of the time, and George Orwell believed that Swift's attacks were targeted at the Whig Party. One can find an eviscerating criticism of England in this speech uttered by the King of Brobdingnag:

My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable 
panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that 
ignorance, idleness vice may sometimes be the only 
ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best 
explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose 
interests and abilities lie in perverting them ... I am 
dwell disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many 
vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from 
your own relation ... I cannot but conclude the bulk of 
your natives to be the most pernicious race of little 
odious vermin that ever suffered to crawl upon the surface 
of the earth (II.vi).

The satire is first directed at England, at European politics in general and then, as the book progresses, it is directed at human nature itself.

First, recall that satire uses inversion, that is, what is normally expected is turned upside down. Additionally, satire pretends approval, but the approval is intended to rebuke or debunk.

The satire starts right off with Gulliver. The first inversion is of the value of education. The most snobbish elite of the "real" London have similar pedigrees. Like them, Gulliver has a fine education. He is sent to boarding school and apprenticed to be a surgeon. But his patients have a nasty habit of dying. He purports to spend hours studying the ancients but the knowledge in theory fails him, and his unfortunate charges, in practice.

The Lilliputians are an example of the egos of the English colonizars gone awry. Their dimunitive size does not in any way lessen their appetite for conquest. They fail to recognize the worth or rights of others in the world.

A third target in the Lilliputian section are the struggles between Catholicism and Protestantism. The ridiculous squabbles between the warring factions reflect the petty fighting between the two religions: what difference does it really make which end of the egg is broken? Additionally, the power of the king is lampooned. In this telling, the king has god-like powers that should make the reader think of the Pope. No man, in Swift's opinion, shinning clearly through his satire, is that humans should possess such authority.

Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels as a direct satire of both the society and norms of the time, and as a reaction to the popularity of fantastic stories of far-off places. He deliberately patterned various parts of the novel after real-life people and events, showing human fallibility by examining culture through other viewpoints. The most important aspect of the novel is how it shows Gulliver, a standard representative of modern human culture, as incapable of surviving on his own in those other societies. For example, the food in Lilliput is far too small to sustain him on its own, and must be provided in enormous quantities. Conversely, in Brobdingnag almost everything is deadly, from a normal-sized human to a small wasp, and despite his instincts Gulliver must rely on the kindness of his hosts to remain alive. The scientists in Laputa know a lot about science, but cannot apply it to any real issues; the Houyhnhnms have a peaceful society based on logic, but have little emotion or creative passion. Each society that Gulliver discovers shows the failures of a specific area in Human society, and each also shows how old traditions become ingrained in culture until they are never questioned (for example, burial practices in Lilliput). Essentially, Gulliver's Travels serves as a satirical look at what makes Humans so unique in both their failures and successes, and posits the concept that even intelligence might be meaningless in the larger scheme of the universe.

Yes, I can : )  The question is, can you? Remember, eNotes editors are not able to complete homework assignments for you; we can only help you to do that kind of work for yourself.  Along those lines I would be happy to help you come up with ideas for your essay, which seems to be about "satire as used in Gulliver's Travels."

First, you have to have a good idea of what satire is. Satire is when an author pokes fun at a real life person, idea, or situation through his or her writing, usually in a humorous way.  Satire works best when it is subtle.

Keeping this in mind, you need to think about the plot-line of the story and try to  think if any situations Gulliver finds himself in can be related to a modern sociological situation.  For example, think of the part of the story where Gulliver lives with the race of super smart horses while the "Yahoos" (humans) are beast like servants.  This is a satirical reversal of the situation we are used to...that man is lord over the animals.

Or, think of the time when Gulliver pees on the burning house in order to put out the fire and save the queen (thus breaking the law about peeing in public.)  In the end, even though he saves the queen (and all seems forgiven about breaking the law), the government uses the law to condemn Gulliver when he fails to obey them.  This is a satirical take on the government using laws arbitrarily to further its own ends.

There are many more examples of satire in the story, but I hope these examples get you thinking along the right lines.  Good luck with your essay, and be sure to ask any more questions you might have that will help you write it.