In the four parts of Gulliver's Travels, Swift employs the eight types of satire: parody, understatement, invective, irony, hyperbole, sarcasm, inversion/inversion, and wit . to add historical and thematic depth to the fantastic journey of Lemuel Gulliver. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Explaining the tensions between Liliput and Blefuscus in Part I, for example, Swift writes: What two great powers have, as I was about to say you, for thirty-six moons past have been engaged in a most obstinate war... In the course of these disturbances, the Emperors of Blefuscus often protested on the part of their ambassadors, accusing us of having made a schism in religion, offending a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Brundecral (which is their Alcoran). However, it is believed that this is a mere forcing of the text: since the words are these; That all true believers will break their eggs in the convenient end. (Swift 85) Here, Swift uses parody to ridicule the religious schism between the Catholic and Protestant Churches that permeated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Swift's mockery lies in the fact that his narrator initially validates the arguments offered by Blefuscu against Lilliput's preferred way of breaking eggs - at the smaller end - by citing the authority of the Brundecral, equivalent to the "Alcoran" , or, more likely, the Bible. However, the reader undoubtedly recognizes that the major religious rift created by the breaking of the eggs is pure nonsense. Parodying the English ecclesiastical system, i.e. the Catholic-Protestant divide, via the Big-Ender/Small-Ender divide, he wants the reader to recognize how ridiculous it is to argue about religion, particularly when the argument occurs over such a small discrepancy as which end of the egg to break or, he deduces, the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (which is a cause of division between Catholics and Protestants). Although he himself was a Catholic priest, Swift perceived the situation critically. Imitating the vague world of theological interpretations in the form of a rather concrete, but ridiculous dispute pitting two empires against each other, Swift reveals to the reader the ridiculousness of the religious battles of the British Isles. The above passage both exaggerates and undermines the Catholic-Protestant schism by drawing an analogy between a seemingly formidable disunity and a trivial problem of eating habits, thus increasing the satire in Gulliver's Travels. To expand the satirical value of the novel, Swift uses parody once again to imitate and mock not only the religious, but also the political aspects of England and Ireland (the two are famously intertwined in 17th- and 18th-century Europe ). For example, he writes: I did not enjoy myself so much as with that of the rope dancers, performed on a thin white thread, extended about two feet twelve inches from the ground... This diversion is practiced only by those persons who are candidates for great employments , and great favor, at Court... Flimnap, the treasurer, is authorized to make a caper on the straight string at least an inch higher than any lord in the whole Empire. (73-74) In describing the pranks of the "dancers on the rope," Swift actually parodies the antics of candidates running for office on the Court of England. It highlights the great mastery in performing jumps and somersaults on the rope to underline the schemes of intrigue and deception implemented by the candidates to win the King's favor and, therefore, the rise to a position of power. Swift uses the name "Flimnap" to allude perhapsastutely to George II's eminent Whig prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who at one point in his political career served, appropriately, as first lord of the treasury in the government1. Although the games of the Lilliputians appear bizarre and ridiculous, Swift's aim is to expose the corruption and fraud that were rampant in the English monarchy, particularly during the reign of George II. 2 For example, the term "caper" has a connotation of theft and deception, and this precisely explains the ability of Walpole - and many other British office holders - to gain and maintain power by resorting to what were essentially political contortions. Indeed, despite George II's loyalty to the Tories, he never dismissed Walpole, a proud Whig, due to strong favouritism; therefore, Swift mocks the political institution in this way. Even in the first part, Swift uses the satirical device of understatement. Introducing his tale, Gulliver takes note of the political structure of Lilliput, at one point referring to tyrannical monarchs. The reader cannot help but recognize the similarities between Lilliput and Gulliver's homeland, England, when she informs him that the emperor of Lilliput proposes the punishment of removing Gulliver's eyes, a sentence regarded by the Lilliputians as minor and actually merciful. It is a gross understatement when one of the members of the king's court comes to warn Gulliver of his impending accusation of treason, revealing to Gulliver that: please spare his life and only give the order to put out both his eyes... to signify His Majesty's great clemency and favor... which His Majesty does not doubt [he] will gratefully and humbly submit to; and twenty of His Majesty's surgeons intervened, to see the operation well performed, shooting very sharp-pointed arrows into the balls of [his] eyes while [he] lay on the ground. (106-107). The Secretary informs Gulliver without particular passion or surprise, and indeed with some nonchalance, suggesting that such a sentence serves as a trivial, even lenient punishment. In this regard, Gulliver then states satirically: "...I was so ill a judge of things, that I could not discover the leniency or favor of this sentence, but conceived it (perhaps erroneously) rather rigorous than kind, ” (109) and later, “[I]f I had known then the nature of princes and ministers…I would have submitted myself with great alacrity and readiness to so easy a punishment” (110). Clearly eye loss cannot be taken lightly; the threat of no longer seeing, not to mention the physical torment of having one's eyes pierced by sharp objects, would provoke indignation and panic in anyone. However, the Lilliputians consider this punishment without protest. This can be attributed to the fact that in the land of Lilliput, just like in England, tyranny reigns. Swift implies that irrational monarchs, driven by their own whims, restrain the masses with the threat of violence and at the same time assume that their subjects will submit to them “with gratitude and humility.” By using such a euphemism, he comments not only on the brutality, but also the sense of divinity that tyrannical monarchs generally indulge in, thus satirically criticizing English politics. In Book II, A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Swift uses the satirical element of invective to express his disapproval of the British Empire. After explaining the history of Britain to the king of Brobdingnag, Gulliver explains that the king:[Was] perfectly astonished... protesting was only a lot of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, exiles and the worst effects that l greed, factionalism, hypocrisy, perfidy, cruelty, anger, madness, hatred,envy, lust, malice and ambition could produce. (172) Swift conveys his criticism through the king's extreme impression of England, which he expresses using a barrage of words with negative connotations. Although the king's overly harsh opinion comes from a man unfamiliar with the country, Swift intends to accurately demonstrate that from the point of view of an objective observer, England appears as a historically corrupt country. Elsewhere in chapter six, the king states: "[From] what I have gathered from your report... I cannot help but conclude that the majority of your natives, to be the most pernicious race of hateful little vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth" (173). Through the king's statement, Swift rather blatantly communicates that, despite the façade of greatness and dignity that the English uphold in their history and affairs, to him they remain a generally abject and dishonorable people. Through the king's reaction to Gulliver's account of his homeland and his people, Swift points out that just as the Lilliputians seem unpleasant to Gulliver, so too do Gulliver and his race compared to the Brobdingnagians. Furthermore, by showing how people of various sizes view England, Swift implies that despite Britain's perceived superiority (created by its political or military prowess, successful expansion, or general assertion of power) , a nation like Great Britain can however be perceived as rather "hateful" or morally flawed, when viewed from the side by others such as the Irish or the poor. Although subtle, the irony in A Voyage to Brobdingnag emerges in several notable examples, one of which occurs when Swift states: [T]he beggars, seizing the opportunity, crowded the sides of the carriage, and presented me with the most hideous sights that a European eye has ever seen. There was a woman with breast cancer, swollen out of proportion, full of holes, two or three of which I could easily have squeezed through, and covered my entire body. There was a fellow with a chicken on his neck, bigger than five sacks of wool, and another with a pair of wooden legs, each about twenty feet high. But the most hideous sight of all were the lice crawling on their clothes... (151-2). The situational irony in this passage comes in the dimension of these beggars and the other inhabitants of Brobdingnag. However, the beggars depicted diminish the idealized and seemingly perfect existence of the Brobdingnagians. By describing the miserable beggars as immense and grotesque creatures, Swift comments on the pervasiveness of poverty in England and Ireland. Yet this statement becomes even more ironic because the king of Brobdingnag condemns the English as “dimunitive insects,” refusing to acknowledge that his kingdom also has many ills to ameliorate, such as beggars in the streets. Moreover, the beggars ambush the coach, brazenly displaying their large and nauseating anomalies and diseases in Gulliver's face: it is impossible for him not to notice them. In this way, Swift intends to impress upon the reader's consciousness the horrific reality of poverty plaguing the cities of England and Ireland, something that the literate person reading Gulliver's Travels during the 18th century may have been too distant from. to understand. of verbal irony occurs during Gulliver's conversation with the King, in which Gulliver states that "[great] concessions should be granted to a King who lives completely isolated from the rest of the world, and must therefore be entirely ignorant of the customs which most prevail in other nations: whose want of knowledge will always produce manyprejudices and a certain narrow-mindedness, from which we and the most educated countries in Europe are completely exempt. (174)This statement comes across as verbal irony because the size of Great Britain and the "most polite countries in Europe" make it impossible for them to be "totally free" from prejudice and narrow-mindedness. On a broader level, the passage above exemplifies verbal irony because, by making such a rash generalization about Europeans, the narrator is, in effect, guilty of the same ignorance that he claims Europeans do not possess. Thus, Swift satirically alludes to the ignorance and perceived superiority of the British Book III, entitled A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg, and Japan, contains hyperbole, characterized by the use of exaggeration for emphasis or effect, to satirize both the European way of thinking and the suffocating nature of Britain. He exaggerates the absurd theories that pervaded English culture during the age of rationalism. For example, Gulliver takes note of how the floating island of Laputa punishes other rebellious islands, stating: [T]he king has two methods of reducing them to obedience. The first... way is to keep the island in the balance over that city and the surrounding lands, so as to be able to deprive them of the benefit of sun and rain, and consequently afflict the inhabitants with famine and disease: and if the crime deserves it, they are at the same time hit from above with large stones, against which they have no defense [sic]... while the roofs of their houses are torn to pieces. But if they continue to persist... he proceeds to the last remedy, by letting the island fall directly on their heads, which makes a universal destruction of both houses and men. (214)Swift intentionally provides the island of Laputa with the special ability to float, thus suggesting that the Laputians and their king - who has never been to the world he rules below - disengage from society. Thus, Swift emphasizes the idea that by focusing exclusively on the abstract and theoretical aspects of problems and investing their energies in unnecessary scientific advances, they ignore the practical concerns of the wretched people below. The author expresses his disgust with European governments that neglect poverty and social ills in his fantastic tale of the island of Laputa. It is precisely England's treatment of the Irish that emerges in Laputa's excessive punishment of Balnibarbi; just as Laputa prevents sunlight and rain from reaching Balnibarbi, so too England restricted Irish trade, leaving the country barren and the people impoverished. In this example of hyperbole, Swift exaggerates the physical extreme of Balnibarbi's punishment by describing, in great detail, the resulting excess at the hands of Laputa: the island descends, as if signaling the apocalypse, physically crushing the rioting masses . The image evoked by Swift's embellishment, of intense suffering, echoes the struggle of the Irish to free themselves from the oppressive presence of England. Another example of hyperbole occurs when Swift states that “When the parties in a state are violent, [a professor] has offered a wonderful expedient to reconcile them…Let the occipites thus cut off [from the party leaders] be exchanged , applying each to the leader of his opposing party" (234). Clearly, the professor's proposal to pool half-brains to resolve political divisions, among others mentioned, simply sounds outrageous. However, Swift's intention in exposing through exaggeration the ridiculous schemes of scientists and philosophers is to satirize the European preoccupation with theory in the eighteenth century. While combining two minds may, in theory, work, in practice it is an actsuch will likely kill both men involved. The reader recognizes this as extreme and excessive, hence the hyperbole. In addition to hyperbole, Swift uses sarcasm liberally in Book III. At one point, when Gulliver makes the acquaintance of numerous legendary men such as Homer and Alexander the Great, he realizes that the history surrounding such important figures is often manipulated and falsified in the interest of maintaining an illusion of grandeur. Disenchanted by this new information, Gulliver observes:[But] when anyone confessed that he owed his greatness and wealth to sodomy or incest; others to the prostitution of their wives and daughters; others to betrayal of the country or of the prince; some to poisoning, others to the perversion of justice to destroy the innocent: I hope to be so, I will forgive myself if these discoveries have led me a little to attenuate that profound veneration which I am naturally inclined to pay to people of high rank, who should be treated with the utmost respect for their sublime dignity, from us their inferiors. (245-246) Here, the reader witnesses Swift's use of biting sarcasm, presented in a situation where the protagonist exposes the follies of historical records and the sense of superiority such "heroes" possess over man common. Swift portrays a series of frightening characters revered by a society that ignores the ways in which such figures achieved fame. Gulliver catalogs some of these men's sordid crimes, such as "sodomy or incest" and "perversion of justice in order to destroy the innocent" (125). When he then mockingly apologizes for his disgust, stating that all high-ranking figures "should be treated with the utmost respect for their sublime dignity, by us their inferiors," the reader can clearly detect the bitterness in his tone. Undoubtedly, Swift's rebuke of the demand placed on commoners to honor glorified, arrogant - and too often corrupt superiors, and, at the same time, the flawed perceptions of these commoners, can be seen in his harsh sarcasm. Sarcasm also shows up in Swift's mockery of women. Discussing the habits of women in Laputa, Gulliver reveals that "[they] will perhaps pass to the reader rather for a European or English story, than for one of so remote a country. But may he please consider that the caprices of the female race are not limited by any climate or nation, and which is much more uniform than one might easily imagine" (208). The narrator initially shows sarcasm when he mentions that his reader might mistake such a description of women "rather for a European or English story." ", thus making fun of English society. Furthermore, Swift intends, with his humorous displeasure at what he perceives as the fickle and fickle nature of women, to appeal to his reader - primarily a male reader - as evidenced through his playful statement that he “might like to consider” (that female character “[is] not limited by any climate…”) (208). Thus, the narrator's less than amiable comments on both dominant figures and women embody the The satirical element of sarcasm, or bitter, witty statements intended to insult. Finally, in Book IV, A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms Swift uses the satirical elements of inversion/inversion. and spirit. The book contains perhaps the most profound reversal of roles and ideas. In this book, Gulliver travels to a land where dirty and detestable human-like creatures called Yahoos are ruled by virtuous and rational horses called Houyhnhnms. There is therefore an obvious role reversal, since man, who represents the most advanced and reasonable animal, submits to the domination of the horse, a lower animal..