History Literature / GulliversTravels

Also, Creator/RobertAHeinlein wrote a scathing satire of the fourth journey in his YA novel ''StarmanJones'', stating that anyone who would prefer the anti-individualistic lifestyle of the Houyhnhnms over human free will doesn't deserve to be human to begin with. Swift would likely agree, given that the fourth journey was in part a scathing satire of the Enlightenment, which Swift ''loathed''.

* PerfectPacifistPeople: The Houyhnhnms (a race of sapient horses) at first appears to be this trope, until they get the bright idea of driving the Yahoos to extinction via castration.

* PerfectPacifistPeople: The Houyhnhnms, a race of sapient horses.

* SeriousBusiness: The Lilliputians are at war...over which end of an egg to break open. This was meant to satirize religious disputes over seemingly petty differences like the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, which had caused (and continued to cause) vast amounts of war and bloodshed in Swift's day.

* SterilityPlague: The Houyhnhnms decide the best way of wiping out the Yahoos is to castrate them all. They got the inspiration for this from Gulliver's description of how horses are treated in England (male horses were castrated to break their spirits and control the population.)

* GagBoobs: An encounter with some of the young ladies of Brobdingnag has probably turned Gulliver off breasts for life, as every single imperfection in the skin texture is magnified to the same degree.

* HumansAreBastards: Arguably the whole point of the novel, though it's rather debatable whether the reader is supposed to love or hate the Houyhnhnms and Gulliver is shown deliberately ignoring any evidence to the contrary at the end of the story. Is the message that HumansAreBastards and that horses are great, or is it that All Sentient Lifeforms Are Bastards?

Gulliver appears as one of the characters in the TV Tropes The Wall Will Fall ARG, and is travelling with Long John Silver. He and Silver boarded a ship in Australia, got shipwrecked, and through strong currents and extremely high waves, ROWED to Japan, and somehow ended up in Virginia after that.

** The title of the third voyage, going through several long and complicated countries' names before ending with Japan.

-->''It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end [...] Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance a those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.''

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: One passage from the third voyage was cut when the book was first published because it was such a transparent pro-Irish allegory of Britain's conquest and oppression of that country. Swift was Anglo-Irish, born in Dublin to ancestrally English parents, but knew and sympathized with the plight of the Catholic majority; he wrote the original ''Literature/AModestProposal'' as a direct attack on English methods in Ireland.

* MeaningfulName: [[BilingualBonus La Puta]]. Also Lindalino, which is a pun on Swift's [[InDublinsFairCity hometown]] - it has [[IncrediblyLamePun double 'lin's']]. Get it?

* TooDumbToLive: Gulliver will gleefully adopt any society he lands in as his own and worship its perfection...no matter how backwards, hypocritical, or unpractical it is.
** To be fair he spends most of the second book arguing with the king in favor of Europe, and seems to dislike Brobdingnag in general due to the many gigantic horrors, and general ugliness, that the place visits upon him.
** Also to be fair, this was a parody of a travelogue, and no matter how silly Gulliver may have thought some of the cultures were he had the subtlety not to say it outright.

Also, RobertAHeinlein wrote a scathing satire of the fourth journey in his YA novel ''StarmanJones'', stating that anyone who would prefer the anti-individualistic lifestyle of the Houyhnhnms over human free will doesn't deserve to be human to begin with. Swift would likely agree, given that the fourth journey was in part a scathing satire of the Enlightenment, which Swift ''loathed''.

One of the precursors of SpeculativeFiction, ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships'' was written by JonathanSwift as a parody of the [[ForgottenTrope now-dead genre]] of traveller's tale, satirising 18th century follies, but is now, sadly, largely remembered as a children's tale, despite being Swift's MagnumOpus and a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids heavily satirical and adult book]].

* AmoralAttorney: Although there are no attorneys in the story, Gulliver's description of the profession to the Houyhnhnms implies that ''all'' lawyers are this.

** It's possible that Swift was critiquing humans through the supernatural human beings he created just as much as the humans in the book. The Houyhnhnms arguably represent the Enlightenment, who in Swift's view were an ancient day Hipster, thinking themselves morally superior to anyone else, but maybe not as perfect as they seem.

* SignificantAnagram: Many critics have pointed out that the Lilliputian capital "Mildendo" is an anagram of "dildo men."

* SuperiorSpecies: The Houyhnhnms.

''Gulliver's Travels'' has [[TheFilmOfTheBook been filmed]] several times, but most of the adaptations omit the last two voyages. Often, a {{bowdlerise}}d version of the voyage is printed as a children's book. Go [[MaxFleischersGulliversTravels here]] for the [[TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1939]] animated film version, and [[GulliversTravels2010Film here]] for the 2010 film starring Jack Black.

** It's possible that Swift was critiquing humans through the supernatural human beings he created just as much as the humans in the book. The Houynhnms arguably represent the Enlightenment, who in Swift's view were an ancient day Hipster, thinking themselves morally superior to anyone else, but maybe not as perfect as they seem.

* RoyalDecree: In the first part.
* ScienceIsBad: Balnibarbi

** Also to be fair, this was a parody of a travelogue, and no matter how silly Gulliver may have thought some of the cultures were he had the subtlty not to say it outright.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The novel opens with a letter ostensibly written by Gulliver to his "cousin Sympson" in which he complains that the story of his travels as it has been printed contains numerous misprintings and factual errors, and bemoans the fact that it has as yet produced no noticeable improvement in the moral character of the human race, on account of which Gulliver has resolved to stop writing. This is followed by a [[PaintingTheFourthWall short note from Sympson to the readers]] in which he explains that certain duller passages were removed so as not to bore the reader and expresses his hope that they will enjoy the story anyway.

* {{Parody}}: Of the now mostly-forgotten genre of "traveler's tales", of which Daniel Defoe's ''RobinsonCrusoe'' is the most famous example today.

** It's possible that Swift was critiquing humans through the supernatural human beings he created just as much as the humans in the book. The Houynhnms arguably represent the Enlightenment, who in Swift's view were an ancient day Hipster, thinking themselves morally superior to anyone else, but maybe no as perfect as they seem.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: One passage from the third voyage was cut when the book was first published because it was such a transparent pro-Irish allegory of Britain's conquest and oppression of that country. Swift was Anglo-Irish, born in Dublin to ancestrally English parents, but knew and sympathized with the plight of the Catholic majority; he wrote the original "AModestProposal" as a direct attack on English methods in Ireland.

** Swift was not exactly consistent about this, either--it's stated then Houyhnhnms are stated to have no word for opinions because they can't grasp the idea of two rational creatures not using their perfect Reason to find the same right answer, and a few pages later, they gather for their annual argument. How exactly do you debate if everyone knows the correct answer, with no room for disagreement? Maybe it's easier if you're a horse.

On Gulliver's third, and less well known, voyage, his ship is attacked by {{pirate}}s, but he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, home to a society of proto-{{TV Genius}}es. After various incidents, including the first description of bombing and a conversation with the ghosts of historical figures, Gulliver returns home via Japan.

Also, RobertAHeinlein wrote a scathing satire of the fourth journey in his YA novel ''StarmanJones'', stating that anyone who would prefer the anti-individualistic lifestyle of the Houyhnhnms over human free will doesn't deserve to be human to begin with.