Create Your Own Writing Prompt #2

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS


Some authors use things like satires to show the humor in how society acts. Sometimes even these satires are used to poke fun of government/establishment. Write an essay using Gulliver's Travels to show how satires are used to show the corruption of the government. Relate this to the meaning of the work as a whole.


Satirical humor is used throughout the novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. This novel is one huge satire about how the government is when it comes to relating to the people that the government serves for. Throughout history authors of all sorts have used satires to make people realize how corrupt the government is or to make people see how they are getting screwed over or to bash on an opponent like in presidential elections. In Gulliver's Travels, Swift uses satires to show how the government controls it's people.

The main character of this novel ends up shipwrecked on an island of significantly smaller people, these people represent the government. Although Lemuel Gulliver is the largest person on the island the Lillputians hold a huge power over him. These people are able to lock him up and keep him as a captor even though Lemuel is obviously larger than they are and could easily over power them. In real government today it is a lot like this; the people in thought are larger than the government however the government seems to completely over power the people in every signal way. There is also a connection between the way that the Lilliputians raise their children and other novels such as Brave New World. They have a sort of caste system that they use to brainwash the children.

Swift uses satire to educate people on how their government really is. The problems that he tries to show people in this novel are the same kinds of problems that we are having with our government today. This novel is still trying to show us what the problems are so that society today can fix them. The solutions/problems were not exactly pointed out making it so today's people actually would have to look for the answers.

Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels uses satires to accentuate the problematic government of his time. These problems are problems that still exist today. Humor also helps make people learn about these problems quickly and easily making solutions come to the people sooner.