Gulliver’s Travels, original title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, four-part satirical recounts the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a practical-minded Englishman trained as a surgeon who takes to the seas when his business fails. The work was first published anonymously in 1726, it contributed to the emergence of the novel as a literary form in English. A parody of the then popular travel narrative, Gulliver’s Travels combines adventure with savage satire, mocking English customs and the politics of the day.

Summary:
Gulliver’s Travels, is a first-person narrative that is told from the perspective of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and sea captain who explores remote regions of the world. The book is divided into four adventures. In the first one, Gulliver is the only survivor of a shipwreck. He awakes on a beach, to find himself bound by innumerable tiny threads and adressed by tiny captors who are in awe at his sheer size. They on the other hand are only six inches tall, but none the less aren’t afraid to use violence against the giant, even if the arrows are mere pinpricks. He is then taken to the capital city and eventually released. The Lilliputians’ small size mirrors their small-mindedness. They indulge in ridiculous customs and petty debates. Political affiliations are divided between men who wear high-heeled shoes (emblematic of the English Tories) and those who wear low ones (representing the English Whigs), court positions are held by those who are best at rope dancing. He is introduced to the emperor, who is entertained by Gulliver, likewise Gulliver is flattered by the attention of royalty. Eventually Gulliver becomes a national resource and is asked to help defend Lilliput against the empire of Blefuscu, with which Lilliput is at war over which end of an egg should be broken, this being a matter of religious doctrine. Gulliver captures Blefuscu’s naval fleet, thus preventing an invasion, but declines to assist the emperor of Lilliput in conquering Blefuscu. Later Gulliver extinguishes a fire in the royal palace by urinating on it. Eventually he falls out of favour and is sentenced to be blinded and starved. He flees to Blefuscu, where he finds a normal-size boat and is thus able to return to England.

After spending a period of two months with his family in England, Gulliver undertakes his next sea voyage, which takes him to Brobdingnag a land inhabited by giants. He is found by a field worker, who delivers him to the landlord. The farmer initially treats him as little more than a circus animal, exhibiting Gulliver for money. Eventually the farmer is summoned by the queen who purchases Gullliver. The  queen, makes him a courtly diversion and is entertained by his musical talents. He soon  becomes a favourite at court. Social life is easy for Gulliver after being discovered by the court, but not particularly enjoyable. Gulliver is often repulsed by the physicality of the Brobdingnagians, whose ordinary flaws are many times magnified by their huge size. Thus, when a couple of courtly ladies let him play on their naked bodies, he is not attracted to them but rather disgusted by their enormous skin pores and the sound of their torrential urination. He is generally startled by the ignorance of the people here. Even the king knows nothing about politics, he reacts with contempt when Gulliver recounts the wonderful achievements of his own civilization. The king replies to Gulliver’s description of the government and history of England by stating that the English must be a race of “odious vermin.” Further disturbing things in Brobdingnag come in the form of various animals of the kingdom that endanger his life. Even Brobdingnagian insects leave slimy trails on his food that make eating difficult. Whilst on a trip to the frontier, accompanying the royal couple, Gulliver’s cage is plucked up by an eagle and dropped into the sea where he is rescued by people of his own size.

On Gulliver’s thrid voyage after beeing attack by pirates and set adrift, he ends up on the flying Island of Laputa. The inhabitants of Laputa all have one eye pointing upwards and the other inwards. They are so lost in contemplation, that they have to be reminded to pay attention to the world around them. Although they are extremely concerned with mathematics and with music, they have no practical applications for their learning. Laputa is home to the king of Balnibarbri, the continent below the floating island. Gulliver is allowed to leave the island and visit Lagado, the capital city of Balnibarbri. Here he finds the farm fields in ruin and the people living in blatant squalor. Gulliver’s host explains that the inhabitants follow the directives of a learned academy in the city, where the scientists carry out utterly useless projects, as for example extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. At a later date Gulliver visits Glubbdubdrib, the island of magicians. Here he converses with great men of the past and discovers the lies of history. In the kingdom of Luggnagg he meets the struldbrugs, who are immortal but age as though they were mortal and therefore are miserable. From Luggnagg he manages to sail to Japan and thereafter back to England.

On the fourth and final adventure, Gulliver sets out as captain of a ship, but following the mutiny of his crew he is confined to his cabin for along period of time, he eventually emerges and finds himself in an unknown land. This territory is populated by Houyhnhnms, rational-thinking horses who rule, and by Yahoos, who are brutish humanlike creatures that serve the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver enbarks on learning their language, and when he is able to comunicate with them, he narrates his voyages and explains the English constitution. He is treated with great courtesy and kindness by the horses and is illuminated by his many conversations with them and by his exposure to their noble culture. He desires to stay among the Houyhnhnms, but unfortunately the horses see his bared body that is very similar to that of a Yahoo, and therefore he is banished from the land. Gulliver is grief-stricken but agrees to leave. He builds a canoe and makes his way to a nearby island. Thereafter he is picked up by a Portuguese ship captain who treats him well, but Gulliver now cannot help seeing the captain and all humans as shamefully Yahoolike. Gulliver then rounds off his narrative by asserting that the lands he has visited belong by right to England, as her colonies, even though he questions the idea of colonialism itself.