Gullivers Travles

In book one of Gulliver’s Travels, Swift satirizes power. When Gulliver is with the Lilliputians he is much bigger than they are. Yet they still think they have power over Gulliver. The only way to efficiently satirize the things he satirizes is to have a character that is gullible. That’s who Gulliver is.
By using the medium of exaggeration Swift is able to satirize the fact that some people believe they have power over other people who obviously have more power over them. As Swift satirized power he specifically satirized the extent some people will go to show that that they have power over the other person. For example, when Gulliver first arrives in Lilliput the Lilliputians build a platform in order to appear bigger then Gulliver. Because Gulliver was gullible he believed that when the Lilliputians were on the platform they had power over him. This satire was affective because it was in a way making fun of the way people would do stupid things to show they had power over someone else. Another satiric aspect of Gulliver’s Travels is how the officers in Lilliput were determined. Each of the potential officers were judged by the people based on things such as, how high they could jump or how well they could balance on a tight rope. The flaw Swift is pointing out is that the public will choose their leaders based on things that are unimportant when they are actually in office. This is affective because the officers that are elected are picked because of such ridiculous things it gets the point across that choosing our officers should be more than a popularity contest. Finally Swift satirizes the fact that even if you save someone’s life when you break the law doing it you still get in trouble. One night in Lilliput there was a raging fire in the kingdom. The queen was inside the house and Gulliver could have grabbed her out but decided to save the castle and her at the same time. He “made water in the castle” and the queen and the castle were saved. As you could guess, the queen was disgusted by the fact that Gulliver just peed on her. The king and his men were outraged as well. They completely looked over the fact that if Gulliver hadn’t done what he did the castle and queen would be dead. This was affective in the way that Swift pointed out the flaw that even when you do the right thing, if you break the law it is the wrong thing. If this book Swift was trying the satirize power. He wanted to change the fact that people will do just about anything to get power. He also wanted to change the way people voted for political figures. All the things he wanted to change in book one lead up to the final book in which he questions human society. In book one Swift satirizes many things, all of which have to do with power. He wants people to change the way they handle power. He does this by exaggerating what people do and how they act.