Gulliver's Travels

A satirical narrative by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726) has retained its popularity with children and adults alike for two and a half centuries for its inventiveness, wit, narrative strength, and a certain kind of grim humour. The four parts of the narrative describe the adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, the ship's surgeon, among Liliputians, six inches high; the Brobdingnagians, tall as church steeples; the Laputans, who are thoroughly unpractical philosophers, historians, scientists, and projectors; and finally the Houyhnhnms, noble horses endowed with a rationality far beyond the reach of human beings. In all the narratives man is shown in contrast with these diverse creations of Swift's imaginations; in each case, however, the result of the comparison shows how vain, contentious, brutal, and self-deceiving human creatures are, and how they epitomize each of the seven Deadly sins.